14. Accelerated Learning For Your Children

The importance of a rich environment in the pre-school period cannot be overstressed.

In conjunction with three leading universities we are now preparing a whole programme for the pre-school child. Teaching them good principles of learning, plus spelling and reading in a relaxed and fun manner, it will also provide a stimulating environment, an appreciation of music and the basis of an enquiring mind.

Meanwhile the following points will be useful for parents working with older children already at school.

As a preamble we cannot do better than quote Glenn Doman, a leading if controversial educationalist in America.

`The brain,' he says, `has infinite capacity. The more you put in the more it will hold. The human brain grows by use - the way biceps do. Everytime we use visualisation, the ability to visualise expands.'

On TV Glenn Doman showed how a child's latent abilities can be `schooled out'.

When he held up cards with dots on them, pre-school children could tell the number without making an individual count. Yet after 3 years of teaching these children to count using a linear approach, they had lost the right brain ability for instant instinctual arithmetic.

Doman believes passionately in the role of the parent in providing lots of learning to small children at normal speeds. He argues that if you slow everything down, you are implying the child cannot learn faster. The child adjusts his rate of learning downwards, to match your (low) expectations. Its a vicious circle, that all too often leads to the unwitting constriction of latent ability.

Expect a lot from your child and she or he will achieve a lot. Children can memorise more information than most adults - which is why our language courses use so many activities that recreate a
child-like receptivity.

Are Women the best Teachers?

Mothers, are probably the world's best teachers. With no formal training - perhaps because of no formal training - they oversee the most dramatic learning period in every human's life.

Instinctively the mother creates an ideal learning climate. It is loving, supportive, positive. For the child there is an emotional context to each new situation.

Her gestures and tone are encouraging. She praises success and any mistakes are corrected by showing the right way to act, rather than dwelling on the original error. She instinctively develops the child's ability to visualise through stories.

It is a sobering fact that the Coleman Report on Education in U.S.A., concluded that schools have 'little effect on the outcome of a Childs education.' Mark Twain expressed it cynically when he said, '1 never let my schooling interfere with my education.'

The truth is that the education of children from families in which the thinking of children is respected, in which their creativity is encouraged, in which human values and intellectual values are placed high, is mostly successful and their eventual success in the world is almost inevitable. In families in which children are condemned as little and foolish, patterns of failure are quickly established and minds are wasted.

Good music, good books around the home, art books, pictures and a sense that there is an adventure in acquiring knowledge, will automatically stimulate a desire for learning - and that is half the battle.

Be Positive

Every single comment about your child's learning and ability should be loving, supportive and POSITIVE. We have seen how easily the mind absorbs negative suggestions and how such comments suggest artificial limits on one's ability.

It is vital to suggest that learning will be easy and pleasant and that your child can achieve the results she or he desires. This does not mean you ignore reality - but a poor mark in one test, for example, is just that. It means that a particular piece of information was not well learned - it does not mean the child is "no good" at the subject in general. Individual mistakes are not important. Success will follow if the child is encouraged to think creatively.

Encourage questions

When you answer a question, try not to provide a final answer that discourages further thought - instead leave your child something to reflect on.

Prepare a Mental Map

Work out a summary of what's to be learned. An overview, use key words, phrases and short sentences. You are picking out the core ideas. Make the words and phrases as evocative as possible. Write down words that are easy to visualise in your "mind's eye"

These notes should be written down or typed in large letters so that they can be used later as elaborations. They can be fastened to the wall or in places where they form a constant stimulus to the peripheral vision. The bedroom is ideal. A memory map is the superior form, because it is so visual. Posters are also good because the information is in part subconsciously assimulated. Make the words or pictures as dramatic or funny or bizarre as possible. The core ideas of any subject are not so many. The essentials of arithmetic can be learnt in hours. Remember to "chunk" and to teach your child the way to make a Memory Map.

Taping the Material

Remember to have an Active Concert - and a Passive Concert - for each lesson to be learned. The active concert should involve Baroque music playing in the background while you record the material. As you read the material to be learned, become an Actor. Express the words with emotion, sometimes forcefully. Raise your voice when the music is loud and lower your voice to caress the music when it is soft. Follow the rhythm of the music where you can - but don't concentrate on this to the extent of losing the meaning. Imagine you are a great Shakespearean actor. Art is a powerful means of teaching.

After a little practice you'll find it easy and fun to do and quite normal. Don't be shy or embarrassed. The knowledge of how
powerful the technique is, will be your motivation. You can always listen to check back on personal earphones!

When you prepare both the active and passive concerts you can use the specially edited Baroque music available on the Introductory Tapes.

For the passive concert the spoken word is softer and calmer. If possible try and adjust the positioning of the microphones of your tape recorder so that the music is the more dominant sound on the finished tape. This way your child can later play back the passive concert as an enjoyable musical background in the house, kitchen, bathroom or travelling in the car.

It's the easiest, most pleasant way to ensure the material is automatically absorbed.

It will be apparent that the preparation of a do it yourself Accelerated Learning Course requires two tape recorders. Ideally you would use a Walkman style personal tape player, so that the range of play back possibilities, is as wide as possible.

Be imaginative with your Activations - the next-day activities that fix the information in the mind. Most of the good Activations involve games and puzzles. If you build in some of the following activities, you can be actively involved in helping your child in his or her studying.

In language learning, several well known games can be incorporated. Bingo is an excellent way to !earn numbers - as are card games such as Pontoon.

"Simon says" can be played with just two people and is a good fun way to learn verbs.

TV quiz games can be adapted to learn adjectives and whole sentences. Playing charades usually engrosses people's attention enough so they talk unselfconsciously in their new language.
You can make up cards, with opposites or synonyms on and then play matching them up. Or you can make up cards with individual words and then use them to form sentences.

A game an older son or daughter can play on their own is to try translating the sense of a news bulletin as its being transmitted. Or they could imagine themselves in a big department store going from department to department ordering things. Or they can describe each room of their house in turn.

Some Practical Hints

Whether you are using a pre-recorded course from Accelerated Learning Systems, or making your own tape for homework, there are a few basic points to remember.

The more you relax the better you learn

The music does an excellent job of relaxing you automatically. But a few days preparatory practice with the relaxation exercise contained on the Introductory tape will prove of immense benefit.

Adult learners might be tempted to think that a glass of wine will also reduce tension and would add to the relaxation! We strongly advise against it. The relaxation exercise and music creates a relaxed alertness and heightened suggestibility. Alcohol will have the opposite effect. It will slow down the process of the brain and reduce the effectiveness with which the material is encoded in your memory.

Enjoy it - or stop!

Every Accelerated Learning Session should be an enjoyable time. 45 minutes to 90 minutes is enough. Once you or your child find interest diminishing, stop for the day. The brain is working less effectively.

Don't be a Puritan

The initial reaction of some older children is that Accelerated Learning can't be working. They are often the ones who do best at school in formal education. That's logical, because they are among the comparatively few who are successful in, and rewarded by, a system where progress equals effort.

So when it all seems effortless, fun and relaxed, their subconscious effectly say "This can't work because it's too easy". We now know how devious our subconscious is. It will try to find ways to prove itself right.

Accelerated Learning challenges deeply ingrained thinking, built up over years that says that learning has to be difficult. So learners need to recognise this inhibition for what it is. You will be storing a lot in your long term memory, without fully realising it, and it may take a day or two for you to relax enough to let it out!

Try and Play back on a Walkman Tape machine

These personal playback machines are now relatively cheap and have the great advantage that they enable you to playback
your sessions in private at any time, any place.
The stereo effect on the headphones and the fact that the left and right earphones can be separately adjusted for sound also helps.

Passive in the Evening - Active in the Morning!

Bearing in mind the way that your brain files, assimilates and stores information during sleep, it is a good idea to play the passive concert as a background in the late evening.

A review period with the active part of the tape the next morning is ideal - especially for children engaged in a test that day.

Remember to involve A.V. and K.

Your child will learn best if all the learning modes are involved. Work out a procedure where there are auditory, visual and kinaesthetic involvements. If you can establish your child's preferred learning style (see Chapter 10) you can create a learning pattern that's tailor-made for him - with a big boost in his enjoyment and success.

Form a Group

If you, or your child, are learning with a pre-recorded Accelerated Learning course, a good way to extend your knowledge would be to form a small local group. It gives you a chance to try out your new language, to interact together, and read foreign language magazines. You might perhaps take a trip to the nearest restaurant specialising in that nationality's food and order in your new language. Get some foreign language books out of the library.

The Accelerated Learning Association whose address is in the next chapter will give you assistance in forming local groups if you write to them.