How the Mind works

I’m sure you have had the experience of hearing and remembering all the words and to be able to sing the whole song. You may not have sung it for many years. The verses are locked away somewhere... I did this myself with a song ‘Simple - Ben’ I had not sung (screeched) since the 1970’s.

How am I able to do this ?The words to songs and many other memories are locked away in the right side of the brain in our subconscious which has 88% of our minds power.

I learned of this whenI was fortunate to attend an Educational Conference where , Sandy McGregor the author of ‘Students Steps to Success” was the guest speaker.

He is an engineer and he is interested in how science sees the mind working. His applications of the findings to learning are all about our brain waves...

“scientists have measured the energy that flows through the human brain, expressed as cycles per second (cps), using a machine called the electro-encephalograph. The output is often represented graphically on TV or a computer screens. When the line is flat that means ‘brain dead’ - the legal definition of death".

He goes on to explain that the rate of cycles switches our consciousness into different levels. At the tuition centre we are interested in first two...

Beta state ( 13 to 28 cps.) waking state

Alpha state ( 7 to 13 cps.) opening sub-conscious

Theta state ( 3.5 to 7 cps. ) creative state

Delta state ( 0.0 to 3.5 cps.) deep sleep

Note in high beta greater than 20 cps. people undergo ‘stress attacks’ and can even die. Less than 0.5 is a coma. As educators we are most interested in the upper two.

Sandy explains that .. we operate daily in Beta. The mind is busy undertaking up to 7 tasks simultaneously.

For learning that transfers information to our memory the mind needs to move towards and into alpha . For the filter is opened which allows information to pass into memory, the mind needs to slow down to focus on one activity.

Such an environment occurs with subjects being studied at our tuition centre. All of our teachers create the disciplined and quiet learning environment . (Unfortunately absent in many classes at school today. All very interesting).

AND....that is what we aim for at tuition a relaxed learning environment ..to slow the mind down through the Beta State towards the Apha zone where the subsciouscious and long term memory are.