Effectively elevate attentiveness and comprehension in children. In a career encompassing urban and private venues, Brian Pack details how to arouse the brain's reward circuitry to bolster classroom focus and promote inquiry and analysis. Click on one or more of the 28 well-researched chapters - over 300 citations!




The Path to Excellence
Without formal training in education methodology, they ran the class, created a joyful and energetic classroom, functioned as a team – assertive, interactive, and engaged.....more



Chapter 1  Anxiety is rampant
The National Institute of Mental Health reports that thirty percent of girls and twenty percent of boys, or nearly seven million teens, had a depressive episode that significantly impaired their mental function.....more


Chapter 2 The Brain, Neuroplasticity, and School
Schools that mix lectures, well-structured team-based assignments, student-led discussions, coupled with gross movement, hand-eye, and cardiovascular activities significantly maximize cognitive functionality in children.....more


Chapter 3 Engagement Craves Novelty
Meaningful experiences in class that touch base with student patterning along with purposeful and stimulating homework improves prediction skills and facilitates the dendritic sprouting that enhances retention.....more


Chapter 4 Schoolwide Novelty
They found that teenagers who enjoy exercising their talents and engage in studying tend to be happier, building psychological capital for the spectrum of opportunities they can pursue later in life.....more


Chapter 5 Interactive and Attentive
Eye contact raises the level of engagement. Furthermore, the laughter mechanism employs the neurotransmitter dopamine, impacting the neural circuitry of human socialization and mood, encompassing friendship, love, affection, and perhaps anger.....more


Chapter 6 Priming the Brain
Parents and teachers note: children, particularly teens, are validation-starved. Mood and behavior can be media inspired, and those that engage in lewd and violent behavior likely saw it role-modeled on television, computer, and movie screens! ....more





Extemporaneous speaking should 
be practiced and cultivated. 
Abraham Lincoln advising young lawyers how best to succeed (July 1, 1850)




Unit II
Chapter 7. A Lot of Boredom
Two-thirds do not appreciate school, the significance of well-articulated content areas. Nevertheless, students want to be empowered as engaged agents in the classroom, validated as capable thinkers, and relevant amidst their peers.....more

Chapter 8. Paradigm
Children differ in psychomotor and learning readiness, but schools in my era were most secure using the one-size-fits-all approach to keep the campus safe, at times lacking sensitivity to the diverse socioeconomic and developmental thinking potentials within the school community.....more

Chapter 9. Group Dynamic
The MIT group found that the most productive and creative situations include:
Substantial number of ideas, Dense interactions, and Diversity of ideas – everyone in the group contributing ideas and reactions.....more

Chapter 10. Trust
Gaining trust is crucial since it increases oxytocin production and motivates students to perform tasks. Furthermore, classrooms that nurture trust between peers and teacher are validating, and likely to be engaging and joyful.....more






Education is a personal transaction among students 
and between the teachers and students as they work together. 
 Dave and Roger Johnson





Unit III


Chapter 11.  Expressive Child in Class
Assertiveness is at its best when they are in control of the dialogue, defending opinions, poised, expressive, and spontaneous in the discussion. It maintains a stream of conscious juggling values and concepts, incorporating pattern and prediction elements in their brain.....more


Chapter 12. Reading and Writing
The processes associated with reading or writing affect the brain in many regions encompassing synchronized cognition in multiple areas: comprehension, social awareness, speech, and visual acuity.....more


Chapter 13. Students Teams
Students become autonomous, articulate, and intellectually mature when they collectively govern themselves and pursue tasks as they see fit. This results in a process of social inquiry....more


Chapter 14. Structuring Teams
To derive the benefits of a cooperative effort, the teacher must have a well-articulated plan in terms of (a) assignment prompts and directions and (b) the group behaviors expected in such a configuration. From the structure created a wide range of assignments can be expedited that maximize engagement.....more


Chapter 15. Lectures
The lecture is often suited for the more motivated, intelligent, and auditory oriented individuals with many becoming less attentive over time. Incorporating an assortment of activities in the classroom will sustain the level of novelty to keep students motivated throughout the period.....more


Chapter 16. Role Playing
Positive interdependence is a factor that helps children recognize the relevance of content areas and derive a sense of ownership. The team works around a self-styled philosophical statement, which holds the members to a standard while sharing resources and executing roles.....more


Chapter 17. Priming a Classroom
Well-articulated assignments coupled with the feedback script and images are primes that motivate groups to achieve a goal and take pride in their accomplishment.....more


Chapter 18. Group Formats
The range of possibilities extend from simple worksheets to complex projects that use resources in other parts of the room or the building, with students delegating responsibilities, working relatively independent of the teacher.....more


Chapter 19. Attention Deficit
Members are held accountable for their contributions when performing tasks as well as being part of the task completion process because each has a role. The ADD and ADHD student finds it easier to remain focused under this condition and is encouraged as his or her talents are acknowledged.....more


Chapter 20. Validated Child in an Alternative School
Every student had a personalized notebook and used the accompanying textbook to answer the questions in the blanks. Students were preoccupied the whole period, and I gave one on one help as needed. This engagement would prove to be their greatest academic accomplishment....more






You learn those skills by interacting with your peers, 
learning what's acceptable, what's not acceptable. 
They want this thing to keep going, so they're willing 
to go the extra mile to accommodate others' desires. 
Anthony Pellegrini, Educational Psychologist at the University of Minnesota





Unit IV
Chapter 21. Validating Adolescents
Young men are inundated with violent and misogynist images from the media. Young women are strongly influenced by ever pervasive messages that place extreme value on body image are consumed by these thoughts.....more


Chapter 22. The Internet
While there is rapid neural activity when we engage with the Internet, attention circumvents the natural path of memory processing because of the minimal skill needed to navigate.....more


Chapter 23. Video Games
The designer of video games keeps participants at a “regime of competence”, analogous to effective classroom instruction when subjects are delivered at the edge of student abilities: not too easy, but not too hard.....more






Successful adults have a rich play life. 
Adults that don't play are often inflexible, 
humorless, and react to stress with violence and depression. 
 Stuart Brown, founder of The National Institute for Play






Unit V

Chapter 24. Balance and Cognition
The cerebellum is not just a motor 'control panel' but also a switchboard connecting the reasoning and judgment features of the frontal cortex as well as the emotional midbrain areas and is consequently tied to learning......more

Chapter 25. Rough-and-Tumble & Brain Development
Through the physical interactions associated with rough-and-tumble and explorative play along with associated risks, children learn to be empowered as valued members of a group through the social interaction......more

Chapter 26. Games
Bunge and her graduate students found that the reasoning ability of seventeen 7-9-year-olds improved thirty-two percent from a regimen of board and card games after eight weeks of after school sessions. She concluded: "All parts of intelligence are malleable. They're all in the brain, and all of the brain shows plasticity".....more

Chapter 27. Movement and Play in School
Schools are authorized to provide an environment that maximizes the academic and physical wellness of children. Procuring a complement of equipment and space that stimulates neurological growth should be considered by school boards and administrators for use throughout the school day.....more

Chapter 28. Consequences of limiting play
Research and anecdotal evidence suggest that exploration, play, and rough-and-tumble experiences are necessary not only for anger management but also impulse control extending into adulthood.....more
                              

The very essence of the creative is its novelty, 
and hence we have no standard by which to judge it. 
Carl Rogers from On Becoming a Person, 1961


Workshop In-Service

Master Teacher Workshop is an intense participatory in-service designed to elevate attentiveness and comprehension in the classroom. In a career encompassing urban and private venues, Methods that arouse the brain's reward circuitry to incentivize teachers and students, amplify recall, and foster inquiry and analysis are explored.


Learn more→




Amazon Author Page
"This is an excellent resource for teachers who wish to invigorate the learning experience and make their classrooms an interesting place where students thrive rather than merely endure the class. The special stress on active learning encourages students to take control of their education and promotes a stronger and more rewarding learning dynamic."
Dr. Christopher Chan, Professor of English Studies, Marquette University        

"This is quite developed. I love the stories of success in the classroom with this innovative teaching style, followed up with basic or applied science that justifies the highlighted pedagogy. Very exciting and well-produced. It's fascinating that good learning goes hand in hand with "pleasure."  All the more relevant this notion is for youth."
Dr. James Topitzes, Associate Professor Social Work, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee

 "Very impressive work.  Solidly based with research studies yet exceptionally well-written in an easy to read, conversational style. It is an excellent book, thoughtful, thought-provoking."
Dr. Bob Sylwester, Professor Emeritus Educational Psychology, The University of Oregon

 "Energy and commitment to this book, the research and scholarly references, as well as the fine quality of the writing style are beyond those of a single or even dual discipline author ......an amazing work across disciplines (science, education, language)."
Dr. Carolyn Stephens, Emeritus Professor English and Literature, Concordia University Wisconsin

 "This is very impressive and right on the mark, super informative and intriguing.  This presentation and program can go a long, long way in reforming education and bringing schooling into the 21st century."
Michael Koren, Teacher of the Year - National Council Middle School Social Studies