An enriched learning environment is one that provides a wide range of ways in which students can learn. That ideal environment treats learning as an active enterprise that adapts to learning cycles typified by high levels of focused attention with built-in plans for periodic "downtime" best described as opportunities to "reflect and connect" information to the existing neural circuitry in the brain.

Young learners in particular should not be forced to sit almost motionless for extended periods of time during the school day. The brain needs a steady supply of oxygenated blood, which it gets from physical movement. The traditional classroom in which all students must remain silent, in neat little rows prohibited from moving, listening to a sometimes monotonous voice and seldom allowed to talk, all present requirements that run counter to optimal learning environments in which the human brain learns best. There are three places in our society where we continually insist on lengthy periods of immobility -- prisons, mental hospitals, and schools.

Immobility is incompatible with complex learning experiences. Throughout the world of science, we have observed that a brain is not really necessary for stationary life forms. Trees don't need a brain because they cannot move and do not engage in any form of learning activities. Preventing learning by suppressing, ignoring, or even punishing the brain's natural inclinations to move inhibits learning in all environments designed for human beings at all ages.

Chronic stress and fear can lead to the physical destruction of neurons in the hippocampus, a sub-cortical structure that plays an important role in memory formation. Cortisol, is a hormone that activates important brain and body defenses as a response to fear, prolonged tension, or stress. Even low levels of on-going stress in a classroom can increase learning difficulties (especially with short term memory) for students preventing schools from effectively carrying out their most important mission-learning.

In the past, it was assumed that human emotions had no place in the learning process. There was a mutually exclusive choice of being either "intellectual" or "emotional" in our thinking. However, emotions dictate attention. It is biologically impossible to learn something to which the brain has not paid attention. Emotions are now known to be a primary catalyst in the learning process. The two essentially pave the way for successful subsequent learning to take place.

The problem of forgetting, we now realize, is not always a memory problem. It is often the neural consequence of attention-related problems. The brain pays little attention to information that it feels is irrelevant. Young healthy brains are typically on "alert", frequently operating at 225% the energy level of adult brains and processing billions of bits of information per second. So, when we accuse children of not paying attention, we're absolutely wrong. Their active young minds are indeed paying attention. They just aren't paying attention to us! Our ancestors did not survive the past 4 million years by devoting enormous amounts of time and energy to processing information they felt was unimportant or immaterial to their existence. Relevance dictated attention and fostered the survival of humankind. Where there was a high level of emotional importance connected to an event, person, or object, there was a corresponding heightened level of attention that always followed.

Increased positive social interactions foster better conditions for both learning and remembering. The release of endorphins, the "feel good" neurotransmitters, counteract the neurophysiological impact of stress and fear. Favorable social interactions such as an encouraging verbal response or other attentive reactions (compliments, smiles, hugs, etc.) from parents, teachers and others will elevate the level of endorphins and lead to more favorable learning and behavioral outcomes. When children lack active healthy social encounters with others, we find that the brain does not wire itself properly in the emotional centers. The physical development of the cerebral cortex can be reduced by as much as 20% as a result.

Music is good for both the developing young brain and the adult brain. Improvements in mathematical and spatial abilities have been attributed to children who learn to play a musical instrument before the age of eight. Music at sixty beats per minute (Baroque music, Mozart, Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, and others) helps to lower blood pressure and aids in relaxing the body's large muscle groups, which allows for a greater amount of blood flow and blood utilization in the human brain. Although the brain is only 2% of the body's weight, it consumes over 20% of the body's energy, nutrients, and oxygen.