NTC learning system

The program is very complex, so it’s easier to explain how it’s carried out. It consists of three phases: 

1. Stimulating the development of neural connections and pathways (kinesiological activities, dynamic eye accommodation, rotation, rotation, balance, running, eye-hand coordination, exercises to develop fine motor skills, etc.). 
2. Stimulating the development of thought processes (abstraction, visualization, thought classification and seriation, associations) 
3. Stimulating the development of functional thinking (mysterious stories, puzzling questions, enigmatic objects) 

Each part of the NTC Programme is important, and it helps a child attain their biological potentials. Intelligence does not solely depend on genetic potential, but, primarily, on the number of neural connections formed by the age of seven. It is during the formative period that neural connections form in the most intense and fastest way. The importance of children’s play is vast, which is something that parents often forget, and they think that spending three or more hours a day staring into a video game or TV is considered children’s play.

The real game happens when the child thinks, moves around, communicates with other children… It would be good if they could, if possible, spend the summer with their grandparents in the countryside, running in the meadows, making floral wreaths, making up games with other children their age, helping out their grandma and grandpa with rural errands. We must not forget marbles, elastics, hide and seek and other active games. Sticker albums are also worth mentioning, but we have to be careful not to buy 10–20 stickers every day, because that is not good. It’s much better to buy 4-5 stickers a day, so that the child looks forward to the next day and it takes them 2–3 months to complete the album. That is something I often mention to parents, because if we buy a lot of stickers at once, they complete the album in 10–15 days and have no use from it. And that is related to the development of thought classifications, seriations and associations that, in activities such as collecting stickers or paper napkins, last for several months.

It is extremely important to develop thought classification and seriation, because, along with associations, they provide foundation to functional knowledge. Even when we (sometimes inadvertently) decide to include a child in some useful game, it’s usually us, the parents, who spoil it. Moreover, it is important for parents to understand that there are many toys that are of not much use to the children.

A common mistake while travelling, let’s say to the seaside, is to have children watch a movie on a DVD player or let them play a video game. I am a parent too, I know entertaining a 4–5 year old is easer that way, but there are other ways… It would be good for them to speak with other children, learn a joke to make them laugh, guess from which countries are the cars passing by, figure out which cars are from Italy (Fiat, Alfa Romeo…), France (Renault, Peugeot…) etc. Along the way, they can mention something interesting about the countries, because that is what children absorb and then, later, the information can be used to lift the child to a higher level. And an essential advice to parents travelling to the seaside. Make sure the kids are barefoot on the beach, as often as possible, because our children almost never get the chance to walk barefoot. Another problem is the fact that the children almost never walk at all, and that disrupts important physiological mechanisms.