More power to the sixth sense

While summer camps are aplenty the India First Foundation School IFFS is offering children a unique opportunity to develop themselves and get an lsquoeducation beyond booksrsquo Their latest initiative titled World Without Blindness is an endeavour to compile a study on Mid Brain Activation method as conducted on two visually impaired children their food and stay will also be free of charge It is also open for sighted childrenWhat is Mid Brain ActivationMid Brain Activation or smart mind activation is the activation of our sixth sense using various techniques which can help enhance learning The concept has inspired the World Without Blindness project which aims to find out how Mid Brain Activation can aid learning among visually impaired children as well as sighted childrenThe Mid Brain Activation sessions will include various games Govind Bhanushali foundertrustee IFFS says ldquoExperiments carried out globally on children who lost their vision after birth revealed that they were able to ldquoreadrdquo the colour and the number of at least three playing cards Next they did rapid pageflipping and asked the child to guess the content of the book which they could identify The results prove that with more training and energy exercises itrsquos possible to achieve higher levels of activationrdquoThe activities include flipping cards to be read The basic premise of the study is that if sighted children can be trained to read blindfolded then the programme can be adapted for visually impaired children as well This twoday residential workshop will be conducted by Yogesh Shetty trainer Mid Brain Activation at IFFS Shetty has been conducting such sessions for the last two years with sighted children and has helped 150 such students through itDrawing music and meditation are some of the activities exploredBreaking visual barriersShetty claims that the programme will teach the technique to students through games dance music meditation relaxation brain exercises and discussions He adds ldquoThe students need to practice it regularly for about 20 minutes Post the workshop children will have different degrees of improvementrdquoThe study explores Mid Brain Activationrsquos benefits for studentsShetty boasts of a BSc Physics an MBA Finance a Bachelor in Alternative Medicines and also trained in psychology from Malaysia He cites an example Mumbaibased 11yearold Aryan Shetty disliked Mathematics and never had any inclination for creative art Post the session he started taking guitar lessons and has developed a fondness for MathematicsYogesh ShettyrdquoMid Brain Activation helps to balance the capability of the left and right brain The liking for music is a right brain functionrdquo he shares while adding that if the Mid Brain of every child is activated it can help boost focus memory intuition and lead to an improvement in extracurricular activities ldquoMoreover for visually impaired children it is a boon if we are successful in achieving resultsrdquo he saysVision for allThe study aims to examine the benefit of Mid Brain Activation on students who are visually impaired not by birth but due to illness or accident ldquoOnce equipped with the skill they can lead their lives smoothly We are also implementing the Mid Brain Programme from the next academic year at our schoolrdquo reveals Bhanushali After this experimental activity with two students IFFS aims to extend this activity to other centres catering to the education of visually impaired students Shetty admits that his passion for alternative systems of prevention and survival in the human body led him to gain insights which modern science cannot explain ldquoSuch experiments have mostly been conducted globally but not in India We are attempting this in India for the first time as a school initiativerdquo he statesWho can sign upThis session is open for 6 to 13yearolds since as Shetty explains ldquoChildren below six years may not understand the instructions while in children above 13 years the brain has aged approximately 70 Emptying the same is a tedious task The mindset of seeing is believing is more prominent than believing is seeingrdquo