Brain Gym, Snot Gym

Heaving, puling and retching my way through a miserable cold, I am forced to take my comforts where I can. By revisiting the comedy Disneyland of ‘Brain Gym’, for instance, which passed me by when it made an appearance on Newsnight a while back, and which comes with a ‘Fish in a Barrel, Shoot Now’ label attached for anyone who took even Inter Cert science. Brain Gym is a programme currently in use in hundreds of state schools in Britain (and elsewhere) under which pupils are trained to enhance the flow of oxygen to their brains by rubbing on their chests, stimulating activity in the carotid artery, which one scientist in the clips embedded here compares to rubbing on the wallpaper to make your central heating work better.

When the [total fraud] educationalist behind Brain Gym finally gets to maunder and ramble his way through a chat with Jeremy Paxman (second embedded clip) we are treated to exchanges like the following (1.25 in):

‘It’s my opinion that we are electrical, that we do have circuits, connections, and when we bring our energy to the midline, to the central point, we are breaking out of the reflex to… to… go from one side to the other and bring things back to the centre, where we can relax.’

‘You say it is your opinion that we are electrical. Are you medically qualified?’

‘No I’m not medically qualified, I’m an educator, but I study and read.’

And this (3.40 in):

‘You believe processed foods don’t contain water?’

‘I had a context for that statement… Fifteen years ago that was the best information I had.’

{Ends}

I would describe my own theory, Face Gym, which involves rubbing a dead fish up and down the face of teachers in state-funded schools who want to teach this stuff, but I see it’s time for some Snot Gym and must be going. More anon.