226 blog reactions to www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/07/education

of gullible victims. A businessman or engineer doing Lazy 8's or pressing their brain buttons, the mind boggles, but it happens! This is the telling response from a teacher calling herself "scarycurlgirl" and commenting in Charlie Brooker's column "Comment is Free" in The Guardian: Everyone's a bloody expert on education aren't they? Being a teacher these days is about constantly dealing with the vomit that government calls policy, whilst defending yourself against wildly ambitious parental expectations akin to

languaging”) by manipulating blood flow to the brain and rewiring neural pathways. In Britain, where it is used in many public schools, the programme has come under heavy fire from the press, especially The Guardian (especially that paper’s science writer Ben Goldacre) and Newsnight. In the latter, Brain Gym founder Paul Dennison is subjected to severe pwnage by host Jeremy Paxman: I think I speak for all of us when I say

Charlie Brooker saw a 'Newsnight' piece on 'Brain Gym'. It's essentially a series of simple exercises lumbered with names that make you want to steer a barbed wire bus into its creator's face. One manoeuvre, in which you massage the muscles round the jaw, is called the "energy yawn"...Throughout the report

(the book, not the band) is hammering on the doors of science classrooms. But now it seems like <i>anything</i> can get past the vetting process. The Skeptic’s Dictionary has an extensive entry on Brain Gym, but you simply can’t go past Charlie Brooker’s hilarious rant on The Guardian’s “Comment is Free” blog, which supplies this week’s “quote of the week: Lots of people clearly think Brain Gym is worthwhile, or they wouldn’t be prepared to pay through the nose for it. If you’re one of them, here

s heads with a load of gibbering crap about “brain buttons”, why stop there? Why not spice up maths by telling kids the number five was born in Greece and invented biscuits?” Very funny article in the The Guardian about Brain Gym foolishness currently sweeping British schools. PsyBlog has been running a fantastic series on the psychology of money and economic decision-making. Long-term methamphetamine use has serious long-term neurological effects on the brain, according to new research

Educational kinesiology Perhaps the government confused fantasy with reality the day it endorsed Brain Gym

Charlie Brooker on the pseudoscience of Brain Gym | Comment is free | The Guardian 3 days ago

the next generation's heads with a load of gibbering crap about "brain buttons", why stop there? Why not spice up maths by telling kids the number five was born in Greece and invented biscuits?" Very funny article in the The Guardian about Brain Gym foolishness currently sweeping British schools. PsyBlog has been running a fantastic series on the psychology of money and economic decision-making. Long-term methamphetamine use has serious long-term neurological effects on the brain, according to new research

http://www.skeptic.com/downloads/WhereDoWeGoFromHere.pdf In short, getting critical thinking into schools is a long journey involving a range of strategies and change… has never come easily. To assume it will is the ultimate in anti-skepticism. It’s more akin to the attitude shown by likes of Brain Gym: A few research papers from another country and one school is not enough - more needs to be done and can be done by supporting a range of strategies. Hedging one’s bets, if a horse-analogy could be continued!

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