4 Things Trainers Say About The Brain ( But Shouldn’t )!

As trainers, we are all in the business of brain development. Our work involves attention, learning, memory, the retention and application of new information.
 
To be really effective, we should understand as much as possible about how the brain works and how people learn and remember.
 
The problem is, of course, that this is a very complex area. What’s known about the brain is still developing at a frightening pace. It’s hard to keep up, unless you can find the time to read the latest articles on neuroscience!
 
So what we tend to do is pick up bits and pieces from various places – books we read, courses we go on, other trainers.
 
And, in most cases, we’ll accept something because we’ve read it, or because someone has said it, without ever going back to find out where the idea came from and whether it’s really valid.
 
We may even use models and theories in our own training which we’ve never read in their original form, just summaries we’ve picked up from a website or a book.
 
Again, it’s often a question of time and inclination – after all, we’re trainers, we want to know what works, we’re not neuroscientists or psychologists.
 
But what this can lead to is trainers saying some things which they shouldn’t really be saying.
 
This may be because what they’re saying is out of date and has been overtaken by more recent findings.
 
Or because what they’re saying is a third hand summary of some piece of information which has suffered from ” chinese whispers ” syndrome – i.e. it’s been altered and exaggerated as it’s passed along from one person to another.
 
Or it’s something which never had any validity at all, but enough people have kept on saying it that people assume there must be some truth in it!
 
Here are just 4 things I think trainers should stop saying.
 
1. We only use 10% of our brains.
 
There’s no evidence at all for this. It’s hard to see where it even came from. It seems to be a general assertion that we underuse our intellectual capacity and we don’t reach our full potential – but it’s not true, we all use all of our brains. How well we use them is another matter.
 
2. People tend to be ” left – brained “, logical people or ” right – brained ” creative people.
 
This is often repeated but isn’t accurate. Yes, the brain has two hemispheres, but they are joined together and work together. There are specific functions which are located in one side of the brain or another, e.g. recognising letter shapes and understanding the meaning of words, but these areas work together to help us understand the world.

There’s little we do which only uses the left or right side of the brain and it’s meaningless to suggest that ” creativity “, for example,  is based in one half of the brain.
 
3. Listening to Mozart makes you learn better.

This is a great example of an idea being taken completely out of proportion. There was some research by F. H. Rauscher which showed that listening to a particular piece of Mozart increased some people’s capacity to do certain spacial – temporal tasks ( i.e. things like stacking building blocks in a sequence ).

This was very short – lived ( the effect lasted for about 10 minutes ) and had no impact on general intelligence or on the ability to perform any other type of task.
 
It was thought that the reason may be because the part of the brain used to process music is the same as that used for these sort of tasks so the music primed those areas for a short time.
 
But I’ve just seen an article on an educational website headed, ” Mozart makes you clever ” , which says that ” listening to music cuts the learning time in half and increases retention of new material…music activates the whole brain and gives you more energy. ”
 
I can’t think of another way to say it but…this is garbage.
 
There have been some other studies of the impact of music but nothing at all would support that claim.
 
4. People remember 10% of what they read, 20% of what they hear and 30% of what they see.
 
This is something which sounds as if it could make sense, and it’s nice and easy to say and remember, but it isn’t supported by the facts. As usual, things are a bit more complicated than that.
 
How much people remember of anything depends on lots ot things, including the amount of attention they were paying, their interest in the subject, the environment they were in, the amount of repetition that took place, their opportunity to apply what they learned.
 
And, as a general rule, people seem to retain information more effectively if they engage more of their senses in the experience of taking it in in the first place.
 
But beware simple statements like the one above – remember 86% of all statistics are made up ( including that one ).
 
So there are 4 of the things I hear trainers say which they really shouldn’t – you may have more to add, or you may disagree with what I’ve said. either way, feel free to leave a comment.

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