B14: RICH Learning (Brain-based Learning on Arts-based Platforms)

by Dr. Rich Melheim

After 33 1/3 years in education, stand-up comedy, cartooning, youth work, speaking and publishing, the amateur neurologist and slightly dyslexic entrepreneur Rich Melheim started learning Mandarin, earned a doctorate in semiotics and immediately became a preschool teacher... in India, Ethiopia, Minnesota and South Carolina.

He wanted to learn how little brains and aging brains learn. What did he learn about learning? To learn anything new you must first open the child's mind and attitudes. And nothing does that like the Arts! The most valuable tools parents and teachers have in their teaching arsenal are absolutely free. Music. Dance. Theater. Art. Fun. Giggles. Wiggles. Once you have embedded new information with the Arts, the next steps are to Recognize, Identify, Comprehend, and Harness (RICH... get it?) the new information to move it from short-term to long-term memory and hardwire it into usable knowledge. The results? Attention. Retention. And a life-long love of learning.

In a couple hours of witty and easy reading, this insatiably curious student of the human mind who was once dead on a hospital bed will take you on a fascinating journey through the neurology of optimal learning. Then he'll explain why you need to throw out all the chairs in your classroom. All of them! Then he'll leave you on the doorstep of becoming a richer and more engaging world-class parent or teacher the rest of your life or he'll buy you lunch. No. Really. Oh. One more thing to remember: It doesn't cost a nickel for a million-dollar smile.