Digitalkatie's blog

Latest council responses about Brain Gym

Glasgow City Council say they have spent £6646 on fees to consultants delivering Brain Gym between 2003 and 2004.  They don't provide any other information.

Argyll & Bute say "This was a very small part of the Assessment is for Learning programme and was one of the 'good conditions'.  As such it was not taken on as an authority initiative.  No staff time or training was devoted to it and no payments have been made to Educational Kinesiology UK Foundation." so a £0 from this council.

North Ayrshire say "I have checked with the Council's Creditor Payment section and am advised that over the past 5 years no payments have been made to ' Brain Gym ' or to 'Educational Kinesiology UK Foundation '. I have also checked with our Quality Improvement Service and am informed that no central records are held on any such training or provision within our schools." so a £0 from them too.

Stirling University win the prize for 'First University to respond at all', with a nil response.

Stirling Council have slyly tried to not answer the question.  They've replied to the request by saying:

"Stirling Council have not engaged with this group from central staff development budget.  Individual schools have devolved budgets for staff development.  There have been 11 teachers and 1 support staff taking part in Brain Gym/Zoom Learning events from 2001 until 2004 through devolved budgets. The number of hours of staff time is 20 days for teachers at 7 hours per day = 140 hours and 1 day  for support staff = 7 hours.  The cost of covering staff for training courses is £185 per day."

So for Stirling all we have is covering costs of £3700 at the moment.  I'm wondering if we can work out the cost per day's training from other councils.

Renfrewshire have somehow decided that it will cost £574.13 in staff time to process our request, and would like to charge us £47.41 (the 10% of final cost minus £100).  I believe this is based on half an hour of admin staff time for every primary, secondary and special school in Renfrewshire, plus half an hour of Business Support Manager or Teacher time for every secondary and special school.  The primary schools have only been allocated 10 hours of Business Support Officer time for the 52 primary schools.  I'm not sure why that's different, maybe just because primary schools are smaller.  I think David and I need to confer and figure out if we're going to pay this or not.  We really don't want to be costing councils money in doing these requests either.

Brain Gym miracles

I would like to quote an article that I was sent by the instructors on the Brain Gym course I was on (sorry to bore you with Brain Gym again but this is a classic)

Svetlana K. Musgutova (2001) 'Progress at the Ascension Institute in Moscow, Russia', Brain Gym Journal (publication details unknown)

"Two Case Studies Involving Infant Reflexes

Case 1. I worked with a four-year old boy who was paralyzed.  Mihal couldn't walk or speak; he could only lie down, as he had poor motor coordination and a lack of reflex development.  His loving parents did everything possible to help him develop his intellect, and thanks to them he could do some puzzles geared for a nine-month-old child. I began working with Mihal using the Brain Gym exercises, and emphasizing the Cross Crawl.  I felt that he needed the active Cross Crawls, so I asked his mother to assist by pushing against his limbs as he did the movements.  The next day Mihal moved on his own, trying to repeat the pushing pattern.  "Listening" to his nonverbal communications, I pushed against all parts of his body.  Then I understood that he needed to be raised to an upright position.  When Mihal was standing upright, his body hung limp.  I gently straightened his knees and back and he automatically pushed the floor with his feet, raised his head, and . . . began to walk.  Step by step, we went to the balcony, where the red roses grew.  He saw the flowers and shouted with joy, and with his whole body demanded to continue walking in that direction.  After several more steps, he smelled the roses and shouted with joy again.  After that day, Mihal persistently demanded further training in walking."

Wow, isn't Brain Gym wonderful.  The key phrase in this extract, I feel, is "the next day"

Danger - if you're in Glasgow you need to protect yourself against brains!

Some more responses to our Brain Gym FOI request.  I had three postal letters today - one generic "we're looking into your request" from Renfrewshire, and two generic letters from Glasgow City Council.  One of the Glasgow letters is from the Education department, and the other is from the Environmental Protection Services!!  I think the FOI officer at Glasgow has watched too many Horror B-movies!

East Ayrshire is our second council to come back with figures.  They have spent £1500 on two courses in 2004 for 30 people total.  They also spent £300 for the venue and catering costs for the events.  This works out at £60 per person, not as much as I was worried about but still a substantial figure for bad science.

Our first Brain Gym response

Although we've had 26 automatic or default responses back from the 32 councils (none at all from any of the universities), yesterday we got our first response with figures!

Comhairle nan Eilean Siar (otherwise known as Western Isles Council) say they have spend nothing at all on Brain Gym in the last five years.  I can actually imagine that it's very difficult and expensive to get trainers into the area to do CPD activities.  If anyone has worked or does work for the Western Isles knows any Brain Gym courses that have run there, I'd love to hear from you.  Otherwise yay for  Comhairle nan Eilean Siar!!

Brain Gym gets moving

  Phrenology 
  Originally uploaded by ElDave.

Our Brain Gym Freedom of Information requests are off and I've started getting lots of standard acknowledgement emails back.  I also got a couple of phone calls, one asking "What is Brain Gym?  It sounds scary"!

If you would like to carry out your own FOI request in Scotland, here is a list of contact details for all the 32 local authorities and the seven teacher training institutions.  I hope its useful to someone.  Remember when emailing to include your postal address, post code, phone number, and be clear that its a FOI request and the timescale of the information you're wanting.

In the spirit of openness here is what we've requested:

Hello,

In an attempt to determine the cost of Brain Gym related activities, we would like to use the Freedom of Information Act to request the following:

1) The amount of money the local authority paid for Brain Gym activities, including professional development for both teachers and support staff, be it directly to the Brain Gym trademark holders,

    Educational Kinesiology UK Foundation,
    12, Golders Rise,
    London NW4 2HR

or to third party instructors and trainers.

2) The number of hours of staff time that have been devoted to Brain Gym activities, including professional development for both teachers and support staff,

3) The cost of covering staff for any Brain Gym training courses provided during school hours.

4) Venue costs for Brain Gym training.  Where the local authority has provided a venue, any extra costs that were incurred such as janitorial staff.

Please could all the information provided cover the past five years and be broken down by year.

Many thanks for your cooperation and assistance in this matter

Kind regards,

Kate Farrell & David Colarusso

Scientist at a Brain Gym Workshop? It's like being an atheist at Mass

This afternoon saw me reasserting my "scientist" side.  All through uni, even though I was doing a Bachelor of Science, my computer scientist friends scoffed at the fact that Psychology was a science subject.  At the pub on Thursdays the physicists regularly mock my psychology background as not being scientific.  Today I was aligning myself to the science side of the fence.  I was at a Brain Gym workshop.

I've often wondered about the Brain Gym hype, and been interested in trying the exercises with some of my younger, more restless classes.  I've done a 'human programming' exercise with most of the S1/2 pupils where they have to follow a set of instructions precisely like placing their hands on the desk with thumbs touching then stretching out their arms.  It worked well at just calming them a bit and focussing their attention, so I though the Brain Gym workshop would show me some more examples.

I was amazed at how little we were 'taught' in two hours.  They started by saying they wouldn't show us lots of exercises and instead would explain the reasoning behind them.  Their reasoning wasn't particularly logical.  What I was suprised at though was how unquestioning and obedient the other teachers were being, quite apart from the fact that the paired work consisted of reading paragraphs in the handout out loud to each other.  At the point where everyone was finding their "brain buttons" (it's apparently just below your collarbones) and pressing their other hand on their belly ("it 'grounds' you") I was sitting (not doing it, oooh I am a rebel) feeling like I normally do at the Christmas midnight mass when everyone else is chanting the Lord's Prayer.

We were told to touch our fingertips together as our fingers have alternate polarities (your left thumb is apparently positive, left index finger negative, etc) and that if you sit with your fingertips touching the polaraties neutralise and you feel better.  Hmmmm.  I've heard more credible explainations in Return to the Forbidden Planet when they 'reverse polarity' to take off.  I'm sure interlacing your fingers then moving your hands up and down above your head make you feel better too!

In some ways I don't understand why there is the need to add the pseudo-science to the sessions, but I do realise that it is all to do with money.  Teach people how to do four movements, add lots of scientific sounding gobbledy-gook to slightly confuse the well-educated professionals who've forgotten most of their degree knowledge but don't want to admit it, show them lots of happy customer and happy kid quotes, then sell them lots of nice but overpriced books and CD-Roms with bad illustrations so you're not quite sure if you're doing it right.  Then when it doesn't miraculously turn your kids into the wonderful readers and thinkers that everyone else seems to manage you sign up for the four day course.  Meanwhile you chat in the staffroom and say how fab the two day course way (because the school paid a fortune and you don't want to admit it was junk) so several other teachers decide they should go on a course and find out what the hype is about.

I'm tempted to start my own cult educational approach.  I'll hire a lovely retired couple who remind you of fairytale grandparents, a yoga expert, and a bad illustrator so do some vague drawings on handouts with phrases like "attentional intelligence" (I don't remember Howard talking about that one!).  I'll get them all to watch Space Cadets to study how much real science needs to be mixed into the workshops to make it seem valid.  Just to get it all started I might employ a few people to stand on street corners asking people if they want to come to a meeting (oops sorry, wrong cult!).  I might even get my long lost third cousin, a hypnotist called the "Great Scroudini" (REALLY!!  He's a relative on my dad's side of the family) to suss out the teachers more susceptible to the power of suggestion and send the science teachers to the bar for a free drink instead.

Sorry - rant over!  If you want a more scientific look at Brain Gym than my ramblings have a look at Bad Science.