First, for those of you who don't know what the CSAP is...
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The Colorado Student Assessment Program (CSAP) is an assessment required by the No Child Left Behind Act administered by the Unit of Student Assessment in the Colorado Department of Education (CDE). The CSAP is designed to measure how well students are learning material from the Colorado Model Content Standards, the established content standards that all Colorado public school students should learn. The CSAP only tests four (mathematics, reading and writing, and science) of the thirteen subject areas in the Colorado Model Content Standards.
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Colorado Student Assessment Program - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
My 9-year-old daughter, along with the rest of her school, will be taking the CSAP tests, tomorrow. Apparently, the results of the CSAP tests are very important, and a lot is dependent upon them. (School jobs and funding being first and foremost, evidently.) "And the school districts are highly competitive with each other regarding these CSAP test results," my wife informed me.)
This morning, I noticed an unopened pack of Wrigley's Doublemint Gum on the kitchen counter. "What's this?" I said aloud, remarking on how rare it was to find a pack of Doublemint in our house. (Only my daughter chews gum, and not very often; and when she does, it's candy-flavored bubblegum, and certainly not Doublemint.)
"Don't open that!" my daughter said. "That's for me to chew in school, tomorrow."
"Oh? For
school? Since when did they start allowing gum chewing in school?"
Overhearing all this, my wife answered, "Since they found out that it helps children think and perform better on tests."
Huh?
Well, I had to go look this up on the 'Net. Here's one article I found supporting this...
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Forget What You Heard in School, Chewing Gum Activates Your Brain
Who Says So?
The original research began in 2001 and made it to the major-leagues in the following year at the University of Northumbria in Great Britain. The lead-researcher is professor Andrew Scholey who used control-groups for his experiments. Later research using fMRIs (brain scans), reinforced his conclusions.
How Does It Work?
It turns out that the chewing-action creates a bodily (mouth and jaw) rhythm which the brain copies, so that mind-and-body get into ‘entrainment’ (in-sync).
What happens next is that “insulin” starts flowing because mind-and-body are fooled into expecting real-food coming to the stomach – not just the saliva produced by the chewing-action.
The first discovery was that there are ‘insulin’ receptors (catch-basins), on both the left and the right hemispheres (cerebral cortex). When the insulin pops into the grooves of the left-and-right brains – they excite the amygdala, hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex into cognitive-activity. In plain English – not neuroscience – our attention (concentration), memory, and comprehension (Broca’s and Wernicke’s Areas), kick into gear and boost our learning-skills.
The Test Itself?
Dr. Scholey’s team uses a group who chewed-gum, a second that did not move their lips and jaws, and a third that had no gum, but pretended to chew by moving their jaws up-and-down – they chewed “air”.
The results were revealing – the gum chewers doubled the scores of those who did nothing but keep their jaws shut. The ‘pretend’ group improved – but less than 25% of the ‘gun-chewers’, but significantly compared to the ‘normal’ (non-chewers), people.
What is Going on in The Mind-And-Body?
What happens is that the insulin-connection helps switch the Central Nervous System from Sympathetic to the Parasympathetic System; from fight-or-flight
to-relaxation-mode.
The hormones, enzymes and neurotransmitters activate ‘acetylcholine’ instead of epinephrine (adrenalin). When we go to Parasympathetic and ‘inhibit’ fight-or-flight (cortisol), we learn and think with fluidity and speed.
You probably know that your [brain] uses 22% of all the body’s oxygen and glucose (body-fuel). When you study and learn you require an additional 10% oxygen to run the brain in high-gear.
The parasympathetic system leads to an increased amount of oxygen and glucose – and it disposed of larger amounts of Carbon dioxide, than the Sympathetic Nervous System. It’s the insulin that triggers it all to happen.
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Forget What You Heard in School, Chewing Gum Activates Your Brain
Okay, so maybe chewing gum might give you a little edge while taking a test. But
should public schools allow an exception for students to chew gum while taking important tests such as those for the CSAP? (Note, these students are allowed to chew the gum only while taking the tests, and must spit it out and discard it afterward. Any other time, gum chewing is disallowed in school, as it has been for generations.)
I mean, what kind of ethical precedent is this setting for the children?
