Forward by Goldie Hawn

Dr. Judy Willis is a trailblazer. Speaking as a mother and grandmother, she is also my hero! I met Judy when I read her article on The Neuroscience of Joyful Learning. I was overjoyed to know that there was someone in the field of education that was addressing the importance of creating a more joyful classroom. I called her straight away. A vibrant voice resounded in my ear and we discovered great commonality. I am the founder of the Hawn Foundation, which is dedicated to creating a more mindful approach to learning. Mindfulness supports more joy and self-awareness. Our mission also includes helping teachers, children and parents learn more about how the brain functions. We have brought physical education into our schools. Why not Mental Education? Dr. Judy Willis has taken the reins and is one of the pioneering forces that support new and exciting ways to help parents understand and be a part of helping their children learn in a fun and exciting way.

This book, reader friendly for parents without the brain speak jargon and filled with specific enjoyable activities, including games, investigation, and interested-based enrichments that will increase your children’s connections to what they learn at school. Dr. Willis”s book is what parents have been searching for and need now more than ever.

As I see it our children are little seedlings all different, all budding potentiality. The Educational system today unfortunately does not teach to the child, it teaches to the test. The beauty of this book is now parents can help individualize your children, school subjects because you can make the subjects come alive through every day experiences in the local grocery store line or on journeys to exotic places together on the internet.

I recall when my children were in primary school I became increasingly alarmed that their early education was leaving them behind and they were getting lost in the process. Their talents and individuality were being repressed inside of rote memorization and the stress related to the fear of potential failure. I took a deep breath and went to the principal and told her that my children weren’t having any fun in school, they dreaded it and I was seeing stress related symptoms. I suggested that she bring more personalization and subjectivity into their leaning in order for them to connect more deeply to the subjects in bringing deeper more lasting understanding and retention. She was very receptive to my frustration and began to change some of the strategies such as learning English through an assigned project that had to do with photographing their family and writing about them.

I knew nothing about Neurology. Nothing of how the brain worked. I didn’t have a Judy Willis on my shelf where I could reference, learn and understand how their little brains work much less my own. I have since learned from her so many important facts about brain development. By learning the basics of brain function, and it’s not difficult, we are then holding the golden wand of understanding ways to help our children.

With technology moving so fast, cell phones, computer games, I pods, not to mention the untamed media, our children are becoming more challenged to focus for long periods of time. How does this constant ongoing input of static affect the brain? How do our children process this information? How can they learn when there is an overload of incoming noise? How can we best help them? Judy will lead us through the amazing, fantastic, magical, brain in ways that will illuminate us.

Judy speaks tirelessly all over the world to teachers, school superintendents and policy makers. She is recognized as one of the leading experts with her brain friendly strategies. She shows us now to help our children learn and remember facts, unlike the information learned by rote memorization like sand that disappear from a squeezed palm.

At last we parents now have a reference to enlighten our own brains that will help guide us in assisting our children’s growth and flowering.
In closing may I say that Judy is a vibrant, curious, brilliant woman who is passionate in her pursuit of new ways to help children learn joyfully. Through this book, she is offering us the gift of insight. Dive in fearlessly, you will find treasure trove of wonder. You will experience your Ah ha moments and it may change the way you see your children forever. Thank you Judy for continuing to inspire and teach. Judy Wills in now on the board of the Hawn Foundation.