It is first period at City Park Collegiate Institute in Saskatoon, and the Grade 10 students in Allison Cameron's class are priming their brains for an English assignment.
They strap heart monitors on their wrists and climb on a treadmill or exercise bike for a 20-minute workout. When they're done, they move to their desks and start writing. The students are taking part in a program that aims to help them improve their focus, concentration and, ultimately, their academic performance through regular exercise in class.
The results have been startling: On standardized tests, the children in Movement Matters have dramatically outscored students in classes in which the program wasn't offered.
Ms. Cameron is a special-education teacher, not a scientist. But her hunch that exercise might help kids learn is backed by a growing body of research on what scientists call executive functions, the set of mental skills or thinking processes that help us pay attention to what we are doing and get the job done.
Executive functions include the ability to focus and avoid distractions, to subdue inappropriate impulses and to mentally manipulate the information needed to solve a problem or complete a task. Together, they have been described as the CEO of the brain, responsible for taking the steps and marshalling the resources needed to reach a goal. Some studies have found they are a better indicator of how young children will fare in school than IQ.
For years, many scientists believed that executive functions were inherited and largely immutable, at least without medication. Now, however, there is growing evidence that certain activities may boost that kind of brain power.
Exercise could lead to enhanced mental performance, and so could a more playful approach to kindergarten that focuses on improving impulse control and other executive-function skills. Music lessons may also help, according to preliminary Canadian findings that suggest young musicians do better at certain mental exercises than their counterparts who haven't had formal training in music.
The work offers the possibility of improving the performance of a wide range of students, from those who already get top marks to those with conditions such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder that make it more difficult to learn. Experts say if training in executive functions is started early enough, it might even protect kids from developing some of those disorders.
It is unclear, however, exactly how these activities change the brain. Some suspect that in the case of simple exercise, such as running on a treadmill, the explanation is better blood flow to the brain. But Adele Diamond, a neuroscientist at the University of British Columbia, has a different perspective that suggests more complex forms of exercise, such as hockey or tennis, might be better for improving executive functions.
Ground zero for executive functions is the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain involved in problem-solving and complex thought. The brain circuits involved in cognitive function overlap with those relating to motor function, Dr. Diamond says. Priming one system can engage the other.
“If you can get a circuit in the brain working better in hockey, it should also work better in chemistry,” she says.
Like many of her students, Ms. Cameron can have trouble concentrating, and finds that running or going to the gym helps her stay focused.
Allison Cameron, centre, a teacher with the Movement Matters program at City Park Collegiate in Saskatoon, works with students Dallas Aisaican, from left, teacher Corey O'Soup, and students Kevin Fiddler and Brandon Mooswa during early morning excercise.
She tried running with a class of children with serious behaviour problems, and found that the exercise led to big improvements in how they handled themselves in school. That prompted her to look into research on exercise and the brain.
For years, most experiments had focused on how exercise could improve cognitive function in the elderly. But the growing body of literature on young people shows there is now a consistent pattern, a correlation between physical activity or fitness and a modest improvement in academic achievement, says Mark Tremblay, who leads the Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research Group at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario.
