Brain Leaders and Learners

Researchers suggest that social competition may be the reason for bigger brains and few disagree with that scientific evidence. My question is, in addition to increased cranial capacity, what other  influence does competitions play in human minds?

Brain gurus such as David Geary show positive proof of growth through competition. Any negatives though, to smack-down-matches you’ve observed lately? 

Does peer rivalry increase antagonism or foster benefits from where you stand?

We know from neurogenesis that people improve their lot by beliefs moved into winning tasks. We also know that competition reshapes human brains when people act to improve. How so?

Run that extra mile, write a finer essay, rebuild a better prototype, swim faster, and you literally reshape your brain chemically and electrically for higher intelligence.  Even simple competitions, can alter brainwaves up or down. The jury’s still out however, if competition adds or reduces brainpower for a more successful life.

Research is sobering. Scientists suggests for instance, that constant Facebook, Twitter and Bebo rivalry, can actually decrease attention spans, foster instant gratification, and encourage self-centered communications. Through competitions for followers, or one-up-ship news reporting, people reboot their brain to live in the moment. The results over time?

No surprise that competition alters brainpower, yet further investigation may offer fresh insights about negative or positive effects to the human brain.  Benefits dominate some research and yet we’re warned of definitive ways competition can hurt more than help.

Before choosing competition or collaboration consider effects of each on brainpower:

Here are 10 surefire ways to view competition, with the brain in mind.

1. Use tone to build goodwill. Even within competitions,  tone tools open opportunities for life-changing dividends. In healthy rivalry tone draws success like the moon attracts tides on an ocean shore.

2. Network to enhance wisdom. Fuel your brain with chemical hormones for growth and learning, by planning times ahead to engage others, rather than merely racing against them on a dime.

3. Interact across ages and cultures. Get to know people who differ from you and emulate their diverse offerings. Connect more with people unlike yourself to learn from and value differences.

4. Ask great questions. Listen, then act on hot answers that refire your efforts. To read or hear alone, works less magic in the brain than to act on answers from 2-footed questions.

5. Put feet to new beliefs. Change even deeply held assumptions, when others hold finer ethics up to the rainbow. Weigh differences, in successful results for all.

6. Run from cynics or bullies. Propose competitive solutions to problems raised. Opposite abuse or toxic competitions, lie steps toward peaceful solutions, from multiple intelligences.

7. Link to high performance minds. Build  with those who lead change for improvements. Facilitate innovative minds and lead fixes for broken systems, that trap hebbian thinkers.

8. Engage opposing views. Show strengths in alternative perspectives, by stepping out of comfort zones to embrace unexpected answers that lead to visible improvements.

9. Try new technologies. Rarely is it easy to learn new online skills but each time you step up to a new plate, you stretch and exercise your brain’s working memory for competitive edges.

10. Send growth zingers to peers. Draw from serotonin to affirm competitor’s ideas and share your own insights when appropriate, to offer genuine encouragement.

Overall use smart skills to create online communities that compete, win and grow together. Skeptics and naysayers will always be with you, yet one day offers every chance you’ll need to join brilliant minds who are changing our world through healthy rivalry at the peaks.

Would you agree that competition against self also powers up the brain for consensus and for building together finer realities across one another’s differences?

What’s your take - is competition a barb or a boost to brainpower?

Nothing’s more important for revolutionary change than consensus building, yet your brain’s basal ganglia works against  collaboration.  Worse, it locks you into comfort zones. How so?

Faced with innovation,  your amygdala poses threats against ongoing change and tempts leaders to settle for safe routines. Have you seen it?

In government, lack of consensus leads to personal power struggles, and prevents insights for change.

In education, lack of consensus means stagnation that lead to crisis more than learning.

An economy,  without consensus creates fear and panic.

Consensus building takes brain-power tools to disagree with respect, and to construct improved realities across one another’s differences. What builds innovative consensus where you work?

The New Haven Fire Department destroyed test results of white firefighters who scored higher than African Americans to allow promotions among black firefighters. This troublesome case raises the question How can tests garner more intelligence-fair results?

This serious case also opens an opportunity to identify the key problem with testing practices today. More importantly, how can tests value all people’s genuine brainpower and predict their offerings at work and beyond.

Unfair tests not only create racism but they also leave highly gifted people behind. In my 1999 book Student Assessment that Works - a Practical Approach,  I showed how Einstein was said to fail his grade eight math test and was kicked out of school for not paying attention. You?

Check out Brain Friendly Test Opportunities in Posts Below:

1. No Brain Left Behind

Intelligence-fair tests create opportunities for people to reach similar high standards through different approaches, thereby enabling people to capitalize on their unique mental proclivities.

2. Death of Education - Dawn of Learning

Intelligence-fair tests may mean the end of the current test industry and the the beginning of building intelligent communities across differences.

3. Brain Parts Promote or Stomp out Change

Intelligence-fair tests require us to take advantage of recent neuro discoveries and identify what brain parts promote learning and growth, as well as avoid tests that stomp out change.

4. Secondary and University with Brains in Mind

Intelligence-fair tests could well awaken universities with learning once again at the center in ways that support ongoing renewal.

17. Retention Lost in Lectures

Intelligence-fair tests would offer the rationale and suggest learning approaches that avoid boring lectures in favor of active discoveries that engage a fuller range of intelligences.

18. Engage Voices on the Other Side

Intelligence-fair tests would invite more brilliant voices to inform us all on the other side of issues, and help human brains from defaulting to ruts within brains and from narrow experiences.

19. Marks of Brainpowered Workplaces

Intelligence-fair tests would alter workplaces to add refreshing opportunities for those interested in ratcheting up their IQ a notch or two.

Would you agree that intelligence-fair assessments would also: Reinvigorate Brains for Learning Dividends, Move Leaders to Replace Broken Systems, Add Brainpower to Disagree and Prosper Peace, Offer a New Run at Old Runways with Space for Renewal?

To Help Create Intelligence-Fair Tests - Join Aug 17 - 21st  MITA Brain Institute here.

We see too many high school faculty fall prey to fatalities that shrink progress and rob brainpower. It’s time to help steer educational organizations through bureaucratic barriers and beyond tough economies in order to reclaim brainpower for learning and growth. Time to rebuild trust and power-up innovations that enhance success for teens in a changing world.

Let’s change faculty and student compensation systems, as a way to measure and reward innovation with the brain more in mind. Could it happen in your community?

What do you think?

Pillars of pedagogy - or props for privation?

Articles below impact brainpower tools to redesign secondary and university:

1. No Brain Left Behind

2. Death of Education - Dawn of Learning

3. Brain Parts Promote or Stomp out Change

4. Secondary and University with Brains in Mind

17. Retention Lost in Lectures

18. Engage Voices on the Other Side

19. Marks of Brainpowered Workplaces

20. Reinvigorate Brains for Learning Dividends

21. Move to Replace Broken Systems

22. Call for Simplicity that Adds Intelligence

23. Brainpower to Disagree and Prosper Peace

24. New Run ay Old Runways - Space for Renewal

25. Why Brain Based Approaches?

26. Tenure, Brainpower, and Pillars of …?

27. Math and Science can Leak Brainpower

Join Aug 17 - 21st  MITA Brain Institute here.

Increasingly,  we face downturns, conflicts, and cutbacks. It’s time to fight back,  and I plan to join the line-up of leaders out on front lines who do just that! You? 

Ratchet up your organization’s brainpower by Jump starting organizational IQ and watch people begin to link leadership to prosperity for all.  How so? Learn daily with the brain in mind, and you’ll likely ratchet up organizational IQ at the same time.

How many yes responses would come from all or most of your colleagues to the following questions?

1. Race: Do shared offerings increase productivity for impressive mutual dividends across races and background differences? Yes _____ No _____.

2. Tone: Do good tone practices enable diverse  groups to take advantage of most opportunities to rebuild productivity?  Yes _____ No _____.

3. Risk: Do daring and mind-bending ventures yield winning results for you and peers without facing cynical torpedoes?  Yes _____ No _____.

4. Gender: Does men’s logic and women’s emotion integrate to form the best solutions from both genders’ minds? Yes _____ No _____.

5. Talent: Do you frequently experience mentally challenging situations that ensure no brain is left behind? Yes _____ No _____.

6. Adventure: Do you and peers stir mental adventures into everyday tasks?  Yes _____ No _____.

7. Humor: Do you prosper from humor’s benefits, or is comedy a tool for building complex concepts into doable practices?   Yes _____ No _____.

8. Motivation: Do you find incentives to jumpstart your workday? Yes _____ No _____.

9. Differences: Do people openly disagree while at the same time respecting other’s views on controversial topics? Yes _____ No _____.

10. Change: Is change and improvement an ongoing reality? Yes _____ No _____.

If you scored 8 or more yes responses, your organization is likely taking advantage of neuro discoveries that offer tools for growth and prosperity. If no, you may wish to follow links in thsoe areas to find tools to rebuild workplace intelligences. What do you think?

New York burns while Albany fiddles. News of political infighting, stalemates, accusations and posturing flood us daily, while opportunities for greatness fade for NY. A closer look, though, shows bureaucracy working against human brainpower. How so? 

Neuro discoveries uncover organizational problems and possibilities.

1. Secondary schools and universities in crisis continue to downsize rather than reconfigure their mental assets. People point to lack of money, poor parenting, lazy faculty, or dysfunctional tests rather then risk renewal with the brain in mind. Check out this video as granny loses her teeth and see why few take risks that alter chemicals in a human brain. Even if Albany avoids risks to improve our lot, people can pull together with targets that rewire brains for success.

2. Organizations lose when we follow men only and ignore women’s wisdom. Yet Harvard research affirms that fewer follow women. Check out how we all win when both male and female brains are valued and engaged equally as leaders. Albany would improve with more female leaders around its table to balance and add value to ideas proposed by politicians.

Warring cultures cannot progress like caring cultures, yet we rarely encounter models where mental skills are designed to disagree well. Conflicts and stressors literally attach the brain’s amygdala which people can learn to tame.

3. Workplace brainpower falls under fire while money runs out. Increasingly cynicism flows into organizations to drown innovation and poison solutions, from toxins that destroy human brainpower. Stagnating organizations surge cynicism while cynics respond with tone that shuts down possibilities. When Albany begins to engage voices on the other side of issues, though, people will move past regrets with a brainpowered new focus. Now that’s when you’ll see losses turn into wins, and you can expect new neuron pathways to dynamic solutions.

Recent research is ripe with amazing solutions to problems we face in Albany, so why fiddle while NY burns?

Some insist that tenure’s the way expert faculty ensure free speech without fear of losing jobs. Others protest that tenure keeps ineffective people and blocks brainpower for new initiatives.

Today, for instance NPR showcased John Liechty Middle School in LA just lost all new teachers because of the budget crunch. Then older, tenured faculty and administrators, who likely will not invest in the new directions, but who were displaced from other schools,  filled in  spots at John Liechty.

The principal expressed devastation at the school’s loss, while people who support tenure, see this move as fair. Listen to NPR’s story where devasted principal lamented the loss, “I don’t know if I’ll ever see another group of educators that are so passionate and committed to the work that they are doing.”

What do you think?

Does tenure work, or does its job security tend to block learning and assessment innovation?

Pillars of pedagogy or props for privation?

See articles below on learner brainpower, renewal, as they impact tenure issues at secondary and university:

1. No Brain Left Behind

2. Death of Education - Dawn of Learning

3. Brain Parts Promote or Stomp out Change

4. Secondary and University with Brains in Mind

Imagine reinvigorated secondary schools or universities, designed with each learner’s brain in mind. It’s time for the death of education to become the dawn of learning. Time for learning renewal to reinvent your entire community! If you see past broken systems, or catch a glimpse of talented people ahead, you’ve already spotted the brain’s plasticity for life-changing dividends.  

People of all ages and backgrounds grow eager to participate when:

1. Learners and leaders look to a bright future within lessons that tap fluid brainpower and link to current challenges. In that setting participants step beyond the brain’s default for ruts.

2. Two-footed questions, open pathways to curiosity and attract more high performance minds into the brainpower and learning mix. Have you heard however, that lectures work against the human brain?

3. Brainpowered facts hook into learners’ experiences and transform disagreements into serotonin fueled opportunities. Can you foresee a brighter future with no brain left behind?

Leaders tend to fund childhood programs first - suggesting that renewal’s best served with younger children. Let’s equip adults and teens with brainpower tools to rev mental engines that reinvigorate caring learning communities. Mind-bending benefits will follow! What do you think?

Leaders who insist on a one-way-only-approach, squash critical brainpower for winning solutions. Have you seen it happen?

Indicators that leaders fail to reach beyond personal opinion to engage opposing views pop up everywhere.  Sadly though, they are rarely recognized by some, as the root of bigger systemic problems.

You’ll recognize this one-way-only approach in any organization where brainpower is lost daily while:

1. Cynics rise up faster when valid voices are shut out, and cynicism shuts down brainpower for creative solutions - so organizations stagnate.
2. Opposing views are missed and so the human brain is more likely to revert back to ruts, which often lead to failed responses to problems that arise.
3. Poor tone emerges and with it - confidence fades so that fewer people take necessary risks for growth and change.
4. Amygdalas flare - causing lost brainpower opportunities because chemicals and the brain’s circuitry works against innovative answers.
5. Meta messages fly - so that communication flaws increase between what you hear and what speakers mean.

It takes finely honed smart skills for leaders to facilitate a wider way, where the best brainpower  emerges to fit each situation.  Of the many executives who tell you democracy runs their operations, I have seen less than a handful who show skills to make that expanded brainpower into living reality and prosperity for all. You?

Expert Jerome Kagan says to value arts as fuel for the brain in ways that maths and sciences alone cannot generate balanced solutions.

Former defense secretary, Robert McNamara says war is flawed by mere rationalism while the brain’s reflective powers, enable us to avoid errors of judgments.

Former Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan, says that mere rational decision-making cannot mend our economic crisis - out of control from mechanistic reasoning. 

Since brains integrate knowledge naturally, while humans tend to separate facts artificially, I say we reconfigure learning with integration as core. What do you say?

Integration would:

• Change hard and soft skills into smart skills.
• Balance decisions between reason and emotion.
• Toss multiple intelligences into the mental mix.
• Value diversity as far more than deficit model.

When integration finds its place within learning, then diversity will describe more leading circles and we’ll finally see no brain left behind. Who knows, perhaps different cultures, genders, beliefs and values would come together in beneficial peace plans as a result. Or maybe racial differences would fuse into smarter lifestyles for all. What do you think?

What would your work community look like if people supported one anothers’ strengths?  If leaders openly welcomed new talents from all, and then facilitated these for group benefit? Did you know that each supportive act rewires the brain’s plasticity for more of the same? How so?

An encouraging word, smile of approval, or risk taken to help another person shine, reshapes your own brain’s circuitry. Can you see how support literally rewires whole groups mental capabilities, in ways that benefit an entire community? 

To create a culture of care, based on the brain’s capacity to grow and improve, is also to buoy up people’s courage to trust taking risks in public. The opposite is also true.

We all watched Susan Boyle lose courage to take on cynics, as a culture of detractors mocked what they saw as flaws, and neglected to value her top talent. Even well-intentioned media constantly diminished Susan’s appearance and her unique communication approaches. Because poor tone became the norm for some, opportunities were lost for others to celebrate Susan’s angelic voice.

Not surprisingly, critics and encouragers both stir emotional responses from people’s amygdala. Critics stir up stress and encouragers activate the brain area for well-being. It’s really a case of cortisol versus serotonin, and it comes within people’s responses to others’ effort and talents.

I once saw a scholarly community refuse to share their latest discoveries, and I questioned why. Person after person told of community critics who openly cut down ideas and publicly tore apart new innovations. To outsiders communities dominated by critics simply appear stagnant, to insiders that community kills incentives and shuts down innovation from even the most talented.

Where are the Helen Keller’s who leaped forward daily to perfect her offering, because as Keller put it, Life is either a daring adventure or it is nothing at all.

People find motivation to improve in encouraging cultures, because human support tosses in a heaping dose of serotonin chemicals that oil creativity.  Genuine care lays dynamite neuron pathways toward more innovation, that my intimidated scholar’s community had lost.

Encouragers too benefit from their own extended care, because a brain’s plasticity shifts in their favor every time they egg on others’ gifts or talents.

Have you experienced mental power that bubbles over in circles where no brain is left behind? Interactive sessions where creativity trumps criticism, and diversity’s the handmaiden of innovative applications?

If so, would you agree that brilliant solutions tend to flow from pools just outside of the prevailing thought - where:

1. No Brain Left Behind: means boredom’s snuffed out with 2-footed questions that stoke new interest and fan curiosity from unlikely connections.

2. No Brain Left Behind: infers stimulating settings suitable for mentally challenging solutions, where people seek intellectual ambiance and risk mind-bending leaps to creative breakthroughs. Or where peaceful hideaways offer serotonin for tough problem solving by different ways of being.

3. No Brain Left Behind: implies that stagnant systems change to improve opportunities for serotonin chemicals to add courage and risk - breaking outmoded rules that hold back genius.

4. No Brain Left Behind: avoids broken education routines that anger faculty, abuse learners, or feed off cynics who fuel flame wars in toxic workplaces and seeks instead to engage opposing views.

5. No Brain Left Behind: revolutionizes learning by venting less and speaking out more about key solutions that pound new neuron pathways toward advanced ideas that win results.

6. No Brain Left Behind: rarely waits for situations to improve but shapes dendrite brain cells by outside worlds that spark mental growth based more on what learners do than what’s done to them.

7. No Brain Left Behind: includes music to transform stressful situations or aid concentration  by shifting brain wave speeds, impacting moods and altering productivity.

8. No Brain Left Behind: sidesteps lectures or mere talking that works against listeners’ brains and engages multiple intelligences from diverse thinkers.

9. No Brain Left Behind:  builds mind-bending communities within safe but challenging settings that refuse to reward cynics who rewire  brains to kill incentives, limit focus or even shrink brains through added stress.

10. No Brain Left Behind: includes others, removes limitations embedded in traditional diversity training programs by reaching beyond deficit models for brainpower tools to disagree in ways that offer mutual benefits.

11. No Brain Left Behind: slows to optimize brain waves that bring sleep at night while revving up the brain’s activity  for peak performances at work.

12. No Brain Left Behind: hooks difficult facts onto ordinary experiences people live - so that learning increases in less time, with usable results.

13. No Brain Left Behind: takes advantage of novelty that stokes memory, and then engages working memory that may hold only a few new facts at any one time,  yet leads to ongoing and lasting changes.

14. No Brain Left Behind: refuses traditional limitations of fixed IQ myths - or dead-end debates that end in shout outs, in exchange for multiple intelligences applied and transformed into daily solutions.

15. No Brain Left Behind: recognizes that unchecked anger or frustration literally block creativity, impact talent, and stomp out innovation, yet can be transformed through natural drugs of choice for turbulent times.

16. No Brain Left Behind:  outsources memory in ways that free the mind for focus in the moment.

17. No Brain Left Behind: values older age because of newly discovered plasticity that enables people to rewire their brains through neurogenesis for youthful and intelligent performances.

18. No Brain Left Behind: spreads generous doses of encouragement that alters the brain’s chemistry through tone tactics that increase serotonin and decrease cortisol.

19. No Brain Left Behind:  replaces meta messages that destroy relationships through implications different from what is said, for honesty spoken sincerely and with good tone.

20. No Brain Left Behind: masters smart skills as tools to solve problems with the brain in mind.

21. No Brain Left Behind: runs from stress that literally shrinks the human brain, and converts warlike tone into olive branches for peaceful solutions and additional brainpower.

22. No Brain Left Behind: addresses people by their names for that added spike in the brain area responsible for personal awareness, along with a sense of well being.

23. No Brain Left Behind:  inspires creativity and invention from multiple intelligences so that learners teach others at the same time they also learn complex new tasks.

24. No Brain Left Behind: rarely waits for leaders to solve stubborn problems but instead facilitates serotonin toward solutions that come from people who become experts through mirror neurons.

25. No Brain Left Behind: refuses common myths that state what’s good for males is good for females and optimizes unique approaches with benefits for both men and women’s ways of knowing.

What advances or  limits brainpower where you work? Could renewed efforts to leave no brain behind improve your situation today?

The mark of a successful secondary school is motivated teens achieving at the peaks. Does it happen in your community?

This summer launches Rochester’s first MITA Brain Institute - custom designed for secondary faculty, and poised to reconfigure learning - with the brain in mind.

Participants will create curriculum together to jumpstart teen brains for higher motivation and achievement. It is expected that faculty will leave the Brain Institute as change agents in their own secondary schools.

Check out the video below to see why the time is both perilous and at the same time exciting, for learning renewal that builds community across differences.

The MITA Brain Institute’s 20 hour certification program will build learning communities - highly equipped to solve problems, facilitate ethical leadership, merge cultures with mutual benefits, and  strengthen students to participate in their rapidly changing world.

Expect to see faculty begin to question broken systems with solutions in mind. Could it happen for somebody you know?

Take advantage of recent neuro-discoveries and that illusive growth you’re looking for tends to follow far faster. Have you seen it happen?

Brainpower-tools create new landscapes -from mental resources immune to recession:

• With a little help from you - an amygdala offers calm under pressure, even when old socks buck change or when few folks tend to support your efforts. Ever see an amygdala overheat on the other hand?
• Tucked away in your basal ganglia find lifelong memories and skills that transform change into excellence. Lean into basal ganglia storehouses too often though, and you’ll trip into outmoded traps.
• Pay attention to brain wave activity and circuitry which can be altered and upgraded to benefit your work with influences such as music in the background. Sluggish brains, on the other hand, create toxins or add to depression at work.
• Move multiple intelligences up a notch and watch others leap on board with hidden and unused talents that add value to any project. Otherwise you risk empowering the cynic to exclude top talents. Have you seen it happen?
• Create spaces for serotonin to flow at work and you will also plug the leaks that allow in cortisol to poison results with amazing frequency.
• Expect new neuron pathways to dynamic solutions and you also prevent the boredom that shuts down innovation or invention in any workplace.
• Take advantage of working memory and watch workers take informed risks to move beyond conflicts into creation and productivity - rather than lock your firm into tough times.
• Inspire discouraged workers who stay stuck in myths with miracles that come with a few brain facts tossed into the ring to rejuvenate an ordinary day at work.

Just a few suggestions for neuro-discoveries that add growth and prosperity or contribute toxins to stagnant workplaces. Which is it at your workplace?

It’s finally come - 5000 failed school may soon be closing as President Obama favors renewal and new opportunities for all learners. Hopefully, the shut down will result in secondary schools and universities who rebuild with brains in mind. This radical upheaval raises a larger question though.

If your workplace were shut down for failed practices, how would you reinvent success or build back work?

1. Would you apply new brain facts that benefit more people?

2. Would you hire more men or more women who value brain benefits of the opposite gender?

3. Would you encourage people to tame the amygdala and to add more serotonin at work?

4. Would you take a new run at finances with the brain in mind?

5. Would communication take on  tone skills that trigger more brainpower at work?

Perhaps your workplace is not yet slated for removal, but unless you’ve reconfigured with the future and new neuro discoveries in mind, you could well be closed out next.

Should shutdown threaten me, I’d start to rebuild by replacing outmoded hard and soft skills, with smart skills that reflect opportunity and renewal with neuro discoveries as practical tools for growth. You?

It’s now believed that you have both angel and devil brain parts and these two forces stay in consistent battle for your actions. Do you agree? Researchers looked at activity in the brain for healthy and unhealthy food choices and what they found may surprise you.

Angel brain parts help people to consider abstract decisions such as healthy living, whereas devil parts push to crave junk food. Simply put,  angel brain parts nudge you toward well being, the devil parts fight for weaker choices. Has it happened to you with food or other areas? 

Angel and Devil parts of your brain battle for supremacy, according to  Dr. Antonio Rangel at California Institute of Technology. Published discoveries in May 1st journal of Science suggest researchers are being led to investigate why some people live more self-control yet others tend to prefer peril.

Of unique interest is Rangel’s question: “What is special about the circuitry of brains that can exercise good behavioral self-control?”

What do you think?

Consider 10 personal choice related factors from recent neuro discoveries:

1. Open spigots that turn off craving also link to and help balance dopamine chemicals.

2, Offer one peaceful act in a moment of conflict, builds neuron pathways to a culture of peace.

3. Create common ethical actions in any group and human brains rewire beyond social justice.

4. Cultivate creativity beyond a cynic’s reach and restore brainpower to heal toxic workplaces.

5. Toss tone skills at words that tear down and watch sparks fly for winning solutions.

6. Act on common sense decision and your brain adds intrapersonal intelligence to solutions.

7. Live what you hope others will see in you and plasticity will rewire your brain for more.

8. Tame the amygdala and watch solutions pop up where stubborn problems persisted.

9. Increase serotonin in your brain and in others and fuel mental journey toward success.

10. Laugh at yourself and then expect brain benefits for you and entire circles as a result.

Research continues to weigh both angel and devil parts of human brains, yet it’s worth getting started on an adventure for benefits from neuro discoveries already made. What do you think?

Innovative leaders voice concern about tired traditions that stunt growth. They cite tenured workers who protect personal turf rather than jumpstart brainpower for productivity.

No question - mind-bending renewal is halted by closed door policies in stagnant organizations.  Luckily, it’s also true that neuro discoveries increasingly arouse slumbering minds and hold out hope.

Sadly, Hebbian thinkers continue to bolt doors shut to access, money and influence, but brain based inventions have begun to beat the winds of innovation’s upper air. Have you noticed?

Stagnant secondary schools and universities protect teaching and assessment practices that work against learners’ brains, yet learning’s revolutionized with the brain in mind.

Business leaders fight innovations that prepare workers to meet current change, yet entrepreneurs crack old walls for new advantages.

How do you gain access to stir mind-bending renewal?

Each step to renew your workplace with the brain in mind - casts lights on mental barriers that prevent change in stagnant organizations. How so?

To rethink old approaches is also to take a stand against Hebbian hardwired thought that defaults back to ruts and routines.

To upgrade motivation and achievement at secondary or higher education is to identify and remove mental myths that shape current secondary and university systems.

To open access to brilliant thinkers is also to convert toxic workplaces into brainier centers for innovation, risk taking and opportunity.

To invoke brilliant solutions from diverse angles is also to build goodwill with those who disagree.

To ensure workplace harmony is also to confront tragic toxins that pollute innovation daily with every spill from cynics’ minds.

To increase profitability is also to remove conventional jargon that covers transparency, leaks brainpower and covers corruption in bureaucracies.

To adjust with times and win is to create neuron pathways forward so that chemical and electrical circuitry of the brain offers tools as dynamic solutions to past problems.

What new brain facts would transform your mental barriers into brilliant stars to follow where you work? What would make renewal worth the risks that accompany change? Ready to tackle the delights and challenges that accompany renewal with the brain in mind? If so, you’ll gain far more speed forward after you flatten a few stubborn speedbumps that slow mental progress. What do you think?

Surveys show that few parents of teens see any incentives to enter secondary schools. Do you? It turns out that many absentee adults disliked high school as their teens do, and tell you that not much changed since - regarding secondary school failure.

Interestingly,  research also shows how teens improve their performance at school when caregivers participate in their learning community. Have you seen it happen? High schools that embrace parents benefit teens and the wider community from more adult presence at school. They also stem secondary school dropouts.

How can it happen?

1. Recognize that secondary schools failed some parents and seek innovative opportunities to welcome them back now that their teens attend. When the school community looks at families with empathy, rather than blame their absenteeism, they often discover genuine reasons for lack of past involvement.

2. Create meaningful entry points for parents to participate, based as much on parental talents and interests - as on secondary school needs. Survey parents’ intelligences on the internet to see what would attract them to school, and build on their ideas. Start with a fun competition - offer a pizza party for the senior class that gets most adults out to the first school-community gathering, and ensure the parents who attend find interest and meaning because they came.

3. Start with small roundtables rather than faculty talks, so parents’ insights are central.  Expect a few dedicated parents, and build enthusiasm to spread this new-found wealth with others. Rather than expect large groups - in the beginning expect fewer and invite their help to build parental support at school functions.

4. Invite talented facilitators to draw diverse parents into key curriculum and assessment decisions. Parents enjoy keen opportunities to help create curriculum at any secondary school where skilled leaders link parental experiences to classroom content. It takes less jargon and more thoughtful questions about content, and parents and faculty find such discussions exhilarating when done well.

5. Collaborate a school wide knowledge celebration to draw together students and the wider community. Following parental and school collaborated learning tasks a celebration of learning allows for a museum of ideas, new exchanges with the wider community and further challenges to those who participated along the way. These celebrations can be student-led and interactive comments can follow on a web site for for a student, faculty and parent exchange.

How would you creatively move teens learning to new levels, by engaging more parental brainpower at school?

Headsets are soon coming out that enable people to control technology with electrical signals that come from firing your brain’s neurons. Imagine a helmet that works a keyboard or that operates software programs - simply because you think into a mind reading gismo, and you have seen the latest invention.

No longer do mind-bending operations happen only in science fiction. You can now send a tweet through EEG, for instance, while your brain waves operate mind-reading technology.

Helmets that detect your emotions accurately, are currently being created successfully in Australia.

Video games are also being produced that relay on mind power only, and it’s only a matter of time before computer caps will read your thoughts with what some call brain-busting efficiency.

Ready for the next round of  innovative and interactive technology?