Cool Brain Research

What?

I chose to Google John J Ratey. He is a Doctor who is an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He researches drug treatments for those with behavioral disorders. He also has research that says exercise can affect our neurotransmitters and helps to change our moods and anxiety levels. His research also says that exercise helps people and students become better learners and helps those who have behavioral disorders.

So What?

As I said in the “what” paragraph Dr. Ratey has done research that says that those who exercise are better learners. He has said in an article I read, “Physically Active Play and Cognition” that we need to make sure our schools have good physical education programs. In the same article he says that, “Physical activity and physical fitness have been directly correlated with improved academic performance.” This is important to educators to understand. If our students are not exercising this could result in them doing poorly in school. We need to make sure our schools have sufficient PE classes and that our students are taking them.

Now What?

As a theatre teacher I can implement this in my classes. Now I am not going to make them do a full on marathon in my class but we can play drama games that can get their bodies working so they will be having some sort of physical activity during the class. Since Dr. Ratey says that this will help them learn I think that is something I should have my students do. Doing theatre up on a stage is physical too. Therefore just having the students up and performing will give them a chance to be physically active during my class.