Brain Gym®, Montessori and Waldorf Education

Gail Dennison, Co-founder of Educational Kinesiology, June 16, 2016

Brain Gym® shares with Montessori the belief that children learn best by active doing and creative problem solving, not passive memorization of information. Brain Gym® blends well with the Montessori approach to learning, and the Waldorf approach as well. Over the years, many Montessori instructors have recognized the similar thinking between the two modalities and have taken Brain Gym® back into their Montessori classrooms.

While attending college, a music professor suggested I read some Montessori literature, which I did. I became quite interested in Maria Montessori’s philosophy, and considered becoming a Montessori teacher. While still attending college, and again later on, I worked at two Montessori schools, over a two-year period, so I came to understand the ease and practicality of providing an environment that supports learning. Even at that time, inspired by my own experiences with dance, I asked one teacher that I worked with: Why not include physical activities to support children’s spatial awareness? She encouraged me to create something with that end in mind, and I showed the children a movement similar to what is now the “Ragdoll” activity in Movement Dynamics. I later read a quote from Maria Montessori: “Mental development must be connected with movement and be dependent on it.”

When my son was little, he attended a Montessori school through first grade – I saw firsthand what a beautiful way it is to begin school.

Paul also knew about Montessori from his study of child development for his doctoral dissertation; he sent his youngest child to a Montessori school and volunteered to do Brain Gym® activities with the children there (that was in about 1980, before the activities were called “Brain Gym®”). He was inspired by Montessori education and developmental optometry, among others methods, to seek a way that children in a traditional classroom could quickly connect with a calm, centered, self-initiating, and sensory-based way of learning.

Gail Dennison, one of the founders of Brain Gym®, demonstrated how she had made toys of her grandchildren.

Although Brain Gym® was designed to be used in a traditional classroom or a private tutoring session, it is aligned with the Montessori approach in many ways. Here are a few themes common to both:

• hands on learning (using movement and the senses);

• multi sensory/multi modality instruction (concepts are taught using movement, touch, visualization, color, sound,… rather than rote memorization or text book;

• the child is given choices (through goal setting, we help a child identify their interests, then guide them toward the goal;

• create a learning environment (instead of “teaching” children skills of reading, writing, comprehension, spatial awareness, etc., we foster these abilities by letting them choose movements that “amplify” their own sensorimotor skills, the “sensory environment”;

• follow the child’s lead (we do so by letting them choose pre-activities and the learning menu, as well as the goal, as appropriate);

• short lessons (in our case, we provide a simple set of sequential steps in which to learn: Brain Gym®’s 5 Steps to Easy Learning

Regarding Waldorf education, many of the above elements apply. In addition:

• community building is important

• learning centers around play, often through art, music, storytelling, and make-believe (as in Visioncircles and Movement Dynamics)

• nature plays an important role (as in Visioncircles)

• development of laterality skills are emphasized through knitting, weaving, drawing, crafting (in Edu-K, through the activities)

• reading, writing and math aren’t encouraged until exhibits interest, motivation, and sensory readiness (in Edu-K: can skip and cross the midline, as Paul explains in The Dennison Approach to Whole-Brain Learning)

A hand-made toy by Gail Dennison.