Teaching With the Brain in Mind

29
4 Enriched
Environments
and the Brain
Humans are born more helpless than any
other mammal. That mixed blessing
means that the infant can’t take care of
itself very well and that it can customize its growing
brain for the world it encounters. This “neural
customizing” can come from exposure to a barren
wasteland of random stimuli or a rich landscape of
thoughtful sensory input.
“It used to be that we thought the brain was
hard-wired and that it didn’t change . . . [but] positive
environments can actually produce physical
changes in the developing brain,” says Frederick
Goodwin, former director of the National Institute
of Mental Health (in Kotulak 1996, p. 46). This
chapter focuses on the importance of enrichment.
We know enough to say the environment ought to
be rich. But, practically, what are the specific components
of an “enriched” environment?
Environmental Influence
The pendulum has swung over the last 100 years.
For many decades, those who believed character
and intelligence are mostly up to our genes
(“nature”) argued for their position and dominated
KEY CONCEPTS
◗ How enrichment affects
the brain
◗ Two conditions for
enrichment: challenge and
feedback
◗ The role of language,
motor activity, music, and
the arts
◗ What really builds better
brains?