How’s this for irony — on the same day a North Carolina newspaper quotes an attorney from that state’s Department of Education recommending that teachers never touch a student, NPR runs a story that says:

“A soft touch on the arm makes the orbital frontal cortex light up, just like those other rewarding stimuli,” Hertenstein says. “So, touch is a very powerful rewarding stimulus — just like your chocolate that you find in your cupboard at home.”

The surging of oxytocin makes you feel more trusting and connected. And the cascade of electrical impulses slows your heart and lowers your blood pressure, making you feel less stressed and more soothed. Remarkably, this complex surge of events in the brain and body are all initiated by a simple, supportive touch.

I personally am a fan of a light supportive touch on a student’s shoulder, and have previously written about studies supporting it (see The Power of “Touch” In The Classroom and “Sense of Touch Colors Our View of the World”).

I’ve received some “push-back,” though, in the past from readers of this blog. What are your thoughts on the issue?

The school year is off to a fast start, and it’s going very, very well. One of the many elements I’m excited about is the fact that I’ve refined, developed and expanded a number of lessons on “life skills” that I’ll be teaching and will be including them in my upcoming book, Student Self-Motivation, Responsibility, and Engagement:Practical Answers to Classroom Challenges (it will be published by Eye On Education next spring). I’ve posted about a few of them in this blog already, but they’ll be a lot more in the book.

This past week I taught my lessons on the “Brain Is Like A Muscle” and on self control (you can see earlier versions of those lesson plans at Reading Logs — Part Two (or “How Students Can Grow Their Brains”) and at “I Like This Lesson Because It Make Me Have a Longer Temper” (Part One). They went very well, and several days after the lessons were done I asked students to write down what they thought was the most important thing they learned and why they thought it was important. I thought readers might be interested in hearing how some of the students responded.

I taught these lessons in my double-period ninth-grade English class, my advanced ninth-grade English class, and my Intermediate English class (I’ll be teaching versions of them in my International Baccalaureate Theory of Knowledge class, but not until we begin studying Human Science). One of the other exciting things for me this year is that twelve of us at my school will be teaching these lessons (approximately one every other week), so I can get feedback from them about how it went and hear their suggestions for improvement. So far, everybody has been quite pleased.

I was struck by the fact that students in my double period class clearly took the lessons much more to heart than the advanced students.  Unprompted by me, many double period students made personal connections to what they learned from the lessons, and some obviously found the lessons to be quite significant.  The advanced class tended to look at it much more intellectually.  My suspicion is that the advanced students don’t lack for confidence in their academic ability, and have probably seldom had their intelligence challenged.  I also suspect they’ve had fewer self-control issues.  I want to put some more thought into how I might modify these lessons for them in the future.

Here are examples of what students wrote:

What was the most important thing you learned from the brain lesson? Was it interesting? If yes, why? If not, why not?

The main thing I learned about the brain was that the brain will get stronger th more you exercise it. The most interesting thing I learned was that even if you’re dumb you can become smarter by learning more.

The most interesting thing I remember from the brain lesson was that if you study and practice your brain will get stronger, and that’s interesting because you learn new things everyday.

The main thing I remembered about the brain lesson was that if you’re born stupid you can still be smart. This lesson was interesting because anyone can be smart even if you were born different.

I learned that the more you challenge your brain the more it learns.

What was the most important thing you learned from the self-control lesson? Was it interesting? If yes, why? If not, why not?

The main thing I remember about the self-control lesson is how the little kids failed and ate the marshmallow. Yes, it was kind of interesting because it was about how you have weakness and how you could get over your weaknesses.

I learned that if you are patient you will get more success.

I learned that with patience you are more likely to better succeed.

I’ll continue to report how future “life skills” lessons go…