Nervous System Health & Education

"I no longer think about learning issues from the perspective of my teacher training. I think about learning issues from a chiropractic perspective..."

The sub-title may have caught you off guard but it is the absolute truth. I call my educational services "Learning Coaching" because "teaching" and "tutoring" does not resonate. To me, "teaching" and "tutoring" sounds like I'm going to use methods of drilling content and curriculum focused learning. While I do follow grade appropriate topics and support learners in Grades K-6, not all "curriculums" (methods of delivering those topics) are what they are all cracked up to be. Being a private educator and "coach" gives me creative freedom to deliver the topics in a way that the learner actually understands. My hands are not tied down to any one curriculum.

***Fun Fact: Most curriculums are not written by actual teachers. I can't tell you how many times I have shaken my head at the materials I was forced to use and how unclear they were to me (let alone my students). The schools get the funding for these poorly written curriculums and teachers are at the mercy of finding a way to make them work. Just another thing added to the workload of teachers. During my last time in the classroom, I was working at the school of a close family member. It was a younger grade classroom, the unit was geometry, and I could not believe how bad the explanations were in the curriculum. Talk about completely confusing a room of students being introduced to the concept of geometry in the younger grades. The other topics in the textbook were easier to adapt on a whim so the students could understand it. This geometry unit was beyond confusing. I mumbled under my breath "This is stupid", one of my students accidentally heard me, and he told me he was going to go tell my family member I said "stupid" (It was a very small school and he knew the staff member was my family member). In that moment, I ran to my "emergency resources", printed some clear worksheets on geometry, threw away the textbook, and salvaged the lesson. Later on, the family member and I had a good laugh about it. It was a funny anecdotal but it is also the reality so many classroom teachers face. ***

The Wellness Way has a great blog article on the "3 T's : Trauma, Toxins, and Thoughts". It is one of the foundations of the chiropractic philosophy : identify various stressors so the body can heal. Trauma can be physical trauma (breaking a bone or an accident) or it can be emotional (losing someone you love). Toxins are anything from the additives in our food to the chemicals in our personal care products. "Thoughts" are the way our minds are programmed and our beliefs (which could be a stressor on the body) (Schroeder, 2023).

I no longer think about learning issues from the perspective of my teacher training. I think about learning issues from a chiropractic perspective.I take this approach towards learning outcomes. Disclaimer: If you book a Learning Coaching session with me, I will not start suggesting dietary changes or product swaps. I respect the service you are booking me for (educational support). However, I will also write and post information on the link between "Trauma, Toxins, and Thoughts" and learning outcomes. While I won't aggressively pick on lifestyle things during a "Learning Coaching" session, I am very conscious of stress and where your child is at in regards to stress.

If they are incredibly stressed out and unresponsive to academic interventions, they can't learn. I look for points of stress and how we can adapt to relieve that stress. For example, if a child is struggling with multiplication and they are stressed out, I am not going to start drilling 50 multiplication problems. I'm adding stress by doing this and not making progress toward the learning target. I may go back to addition problems and then re-introduce multiplication problems. By going back to addition, I'm building their confidence with something they are familiar with, I am lowering their stress response, and I can emphasize the connection between addition and multiplication. This emphasis leads to better learning outcomes than just "drilling".

I always ask myself before working with a student:

• "How receptive are they right now to what I am trying to accomplish?"

• "How can I decrease stress and make them more receptive to this topic?"

• "Do I need a reward system to lower stress and encourage them to try this topic that they might not be a fan of?"

I wasn't taught this as an educator but it is the truth: when it comes to learning outcomes, the nervous system state sometimes matters more than anything else.

Resources:

Schroeder, Betsy. ““The 3 T’s”: The Trauma, Toxins, and Thoughts That Stress the Body and Cause Dis-Ease - the Wellness Way.” The Wellness Way, 29 Mar. 2023, www.thewellnessway.com/the-3-ts-the-trauma-toxins-and-thoughts-that-stress-the-body-and-cause-dis-ease/.