this is your brain on art

It has 6 legs (or four arms and two legs) along with cat ears, and wings behind. What is it? Even the child who made it is not sure. Yesterday my first, second and third grade students continued making "superheroes."Some of my fourth, fifth and sixth grade students would have preferred that activity to making models of the solar system. But we started that project anyway.

We must make certain that children's brains are effectively engaged in in school. In the early days of manual arts training, administrators were concerned that exercises not be "purely mechanical," meaning that what the children did and made must involve the brain as well as the hands. Children's hands were not to be put to mindless (and mind numbing) tasks, like those one might find in industrial employment. Now we must demand that educational activities involve the hands as well as the brain. The hands and brain form a learning system in which each part refreshes and sustains the other.

Educational psychologists have long described the effect of art on mental performance. Now, through the use of brain imaging technology, we can see the actual effect. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/lifestyle/your-brain-on-art/

Make, fix, create, and make full use of our most effective learning instruments: our hands.