PEN Comment: Edutopia news identifies a CBS News Video on exercising and learning http://www.edutopia.org/edutopianews.html

Video: Pumping Up the Brain
Researchers are finding that exercise can not only keep you fit but also make you smarter. A school in Illinois has developed a program that gets students moving and learning. — CBS News.

This is an interesting video with a number of additional points you may not know about the link between exercise and brain growth / achievement. This is all very interesting and worthwhile knowledge which all of us can draw from.  However, the real questions raised here relate to the overall structures, organization and efficacy of compulsory schooling. The images in the video are reminiscent of battery farming and we’re reminded of John Abbott’s quotation regarding whether we want  our learners to be battery hens or free-range chickens (John Abbott 21st Century Learning Initiative http://www.21learn.org/). Interjecting bursts of exercise between lessons  is tantamount to putting the odd toy or exercise station into the chicken shed – the inmates are still understimualted, have growth their stunted and can’t get out.

Infants learn rapidly and develop through movement, exercise  and play this film seems to confirm what many of us already knew  that the same goes throughout our lives.