This year’s Colorado Student Assessment Program results show a drop of 3 percentage points in third-grade reading ability.
Perhaps the time is right to revisit an age-old classroom ban on a sticky student pleasure, and let them chew gum. Not as reward or incentive, but as an achievement aid. Seriously.
Allowing sugarless chewing gum in class may be hard for teachers to swallow, but there is scientific research to support it. A study conducted by the Baylor College of Medicine last year found the math scores of junior high students allowed to chew gum in class and while doing homework was 3 percent higher than the gum-free test group.
OK, so the study was funded by the Wrigley Science Institute, a division of the chewing gum giant based in Chicago. But couldn’t this be an experiment worth testing in our schools? What’s the risk? More gum under desks, stuck in ponytails and sneaker bottoms?
If we can’t even teach our kids the proper disposal of chewing gum, what hope do we have of getting those kids who scored “unsatisfactory” in reading up to speed? Nearly a quarter of Denver Public School students scored in that bottom level.
Desperate times call for creative measures.
My sons’ Douglas County elementary school now lets kids bring large exercise balls to class to sit on instead of chairs. The balancing act of sitting on a ball is believed to help kids cope with bottled-up energy, have better posture and focus on their work. It’s a trick borrowed from special education practices. I know my first-grader was happy.
Andrew Scholey, a professor of behavioral and brain sciences at Swinburne University in Melbourne, led a study in 2008 that showed chewing gum helped improve alertness and relieve anxiety in adults. He was also involved in another study that found chewing gum improves memory and brain performance. Some researchers think the act of chewing triggers the release of insulin, which stimulates the brain.
Whatever the explanation, it’s something baseball players have known for decades: Chewing gum (or that nasty smokeless tobacco) helps keep their eyes on the ball.
Littleton pediatric dentist Scott Pankratz recommends sugarless gum with the natural sweetener xylitol. He says chewing gum “stimulates saliva flow and that neutralizes acid in the mouth. Xylitol doesn’t kill bacteria, but it keeps it from adhering to the tooth structure so it can’t reproduce.”
I’m not saying gum is the whole answer, but why not treat it as one more item in the toolbox used to build stronger students? Problem students would lose the privilege, a life lesson also worth learning.
If we could regain that 3- point loss next year, and even more due to increased reading interventions (and parental support), it might make a silly measure seem worthwhile, like Olympic swimmers shaving their body hair to gain a few hundredths of a second in their races. Small things can make the difference.
To support my case for cud in the classroom, I’m willing to put my money where my son’s mouth is and provide his entire class with enough sugarless gum to get them through CSAPs next spring.
And if scores don’t go up, I’ll eat my words.
Kristen Kidd (kiddstories@gmail.com) is raising two sons in Highlands Ranch.
