Brain Gym: Was I being flippant, Part II
Last year in my keynote at ULearn07 in Auckland I criticised Brain Gym based on some small-scale research findings of a colleague, and a fair amount of reading into a technique which seemed to have no research base to back it up. All of this was started with an initial awareness of its problems from Digital Katie and David Colarusso. They were trying to find out how many public bucks had been spent on the 'boosting brain power' programme in schools which seemed to have no reasoning behind its miracle claims.
It's a post from Quality Improvement Officer Gordon McKinlay which highlights this latest research which, pretty categorically, debunks the Brain Gym myth. One worth sharing with staff, no matter how much they protect the apparent wonder effects of the programme. See Jeremy Paxman and colleagues take it to bits in this Newsnight excerpt:
Ben Goldacre has been particularly strong on this issue on his own site (http://www.badscience.net/?p=652) and in the Guardian for the past few years.
On a smilar vein check out his stuff on the fish oil in schools project (http://www.badscience.net/?p=649#more-649)
Lucy
Posted by: Lucy Crichton | April 15, 2008 at 12:29 PM
great! thanks very much for sharing!
Posted by: Poor child | April 18, 2008 at 04:59 PM
Did you see Charlie Brooker's piece on Brain Gym? http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/07/education
Posted by: Alan Coady | April 21, 2008 at 10:48 PM