“In order for man to succeed in life, God provided him with two means, education and physical activity. Not separately, one for the soul and the other for the body, but two together. With these two means, man can attain perfection.”
Plato
Exercise & Education
As I develop this page, I have listed websites that explain the connection between exercise, student learning, and school achievement.
Please explore since I am certain you’ll find the sites informative and worthwhile.
John Ratey, Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School
The best-selling book Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain is a groundbreaking and fascinating investigation into the transformative effects of exercise on the brain, from the bestselling author and renowned psychiatrist John J. Ratey, MD. Ratey, Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and an internationally recognized expert in Neuropsychiatry explains that you can beat stress, lift your mood, fight memory loss, sharpen your intellect, and function better than ever simply by elevating your heart rate and breaking a sweat? The evidence is incontrovertible: Aerobic exercise physically remodels our brains for peak performance.
Below watch two John Ratey's videos explaining why exercise is essential to education.
Run, Jump, Learn! How Exercise can Transform our Schools: John J. Ratey, MD at TEDxManhattanBeach (10:43): While exercise in good for the body, Dr. John J. Ratey, MD, argues it is more important for the brain, especially when it comes to students in the classroom. Citing scientific studies and real-world examples, this internationally recognized expert in the brain-exercise connection demonstrates how we can raise test scores, lower behavioral problems, and help the overall well-being of today's students with fitness based physical education.
Carl Cotman, Professor of Neurology, UC Irvine School of Medicine and Director of the Institute for Brain Aging and Dementia Research and Graduate Studies, blazed the trail for the study of exercise and its effect on the growth of new neurons. His research proved that synaptic plasticity also involves the growth of new nerve cells, particularly in the hippocampus, one of the areas of the brain directly involved in memory. Cotman established a direct biological connection between movement and cognitive function. He proved that exercise sparks neuron development (the growth of new neuron) in the hippocampus, the master molecule of the learning process. The hippocampus is extremely vulnerable to degenerative diseases and early research has shown that the growth of new neurons in this area helps to slow the onset of some types of degenerative diseases. (Cotman’s work is discussed in length in the exercise section).
