A school in south Florida, the Hagen Road Elementary School, will give its students a “special brain snack” before taking the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. The apple flavored cereal bar is being called the “FCAT PowerBar” in reference to the test, and school officials are telling students that eating the snack guarantees better results on the exam.
School officials are relying on something known as the Placebo Effect… the phenomenon relies on the concept of mind-over matter… that is if a subject believes strongly enough in something then that subject essentially
wills it to happen.
We often see Placebo medication given to patients in the hope that they will recover from grave illnesses… and sometimes it works…
The problem now facing the Hagen Road Elementary School however is that once the drug or in this case the brain-food is identified as a placebo, the potential positive effects of that placebo are neutralized… the essential element of the process, is that the person taking the placebo needs to fully believe in its power… thus if the kids at Hagen know they are being given regular cereal bars… they become just that… regular cereal bars.