With The Lights Out...

Let there be light... soft, natural, brain-friendly light, that is!

When Dr. Tate was speaking to us the other night, she spoke to us about brain-friendly classroom conditions - one of these conditions being lighting. While most schools use fluorescent lighting, this lighting is actually the least friendly to the human brain. Experiments have shown fluorescent lighting to be a cause of both migraine headaches and hyperactivity. The latter has been a big problem for me lately, as it seems nearly impossible to get kids to sit down and listen to instructions. Since Dr. Tate was giving her lecture in my classroom/computer lab, I reflected for a moment on how obnoxious the lighting scheme was.

As a private joke, yesterday I turned off half the lights in my classroom. First off, nobody complained about any lack of lighting; furthermore, I noticed things were a little less hyper than usual. Maybe it's in my head, but then maybe I really had too much obnoxious light in my classroom.

Maybe I will survive the year... with the lights out!