Teachers in Britain have come in for a lot of flak lately about gullibility and practicing pseudoscience nonsense in their classrooms. This came about mainly through their involvement with Brain Gym. Brain Gym (also called Educational Kinesiology) is practiced in schools in many Western countries, including South Africa, so the accusations of gullibility really applies much wider than Britain.
One must be careful about singling out teachers. Brain Gym is also practiced by occupational therapists, physiotherapists and psychologists, all of whom should really know better. Brain Gym has also targeted the corporate world and have found no shortage 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 making numerous high quality silk purses out of frankly unsuitable sow's ears. Teachers do Brain Gym for a number of reasons, one of which might possibly be because they've been told to do it. And if you're a teacher and you don't do what you're told to do, you get shat on.
Education these days is like playing soccer with a rugby ball. Just when you think you've got it, it bounces off in a completely random direction. And just as you get near the goal, someone tells you you're actually plying netball. And the crowd REALLY hate you, because they could do it so much better.
And yes, Brain Gym has got to be bollocks, otherwise I am really going to have to look carefully at what I teach in Biology in the future.
Scarycurlgirl certainly does'nt pull her punches, but many teachers will find much to agree with in her views.
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