Jj is for Jottings 5.  Movement and Learning.

Pictured: “Will you just go away and stop taking photos!” Manuel – an alpaca with attitude.

Did you know that learning requires movement? We fall into the trap of dividing life into physical versus mental activities, but in fact we can’t separate movement from learning.
Skills of all types are built through muscle movements, from the physical skills of athletes, dancers etc., to the less obvious (but very complex) muscle movements involved in speech, language and gesture. Even if our thinking is deep and abstract, it can only be manifested through the use of the muscles in our bodies – speaking, writing, making music, computing and so on.
At the very start of the learning process we move so that we align our sensory organs to receive maximum input from our environment eg. turning your head so that one ear is close to the person speaking to you in a noisy room; moving your eyes around to take in the entire diagram on the whiteboard.
There must be movement to “pin down” a thought. You may sit quietly to think, but an action must be used to anchor a thought – either written or spoken words. Talking (or writing) allows us to organise and elaborate our thoughts. When we talk about what we’ve learned, the physical movements internalise and solidify it in nerve networks.
Studies clearly show that more active people – adults and children – score better on mental tests than less active people. Recent research has discovered that muscular activities, especially co-ordinated movements, stimulate the production of neurotrophins, which in turn stimulate the growth of nerve cells and increase the number of neural connections in the brain. How many times have we observed that the students who excel academically at secondary school are also excellent sportspeople, and many are also talented in music and other arts?
So it is essential to the learning process that we allow children to explore every aspect of movement and balance in their environment – walking along the kerb, climbing a tree, or even jumping on the furniture! Or perhaps a more acceptable alternative to that last one.