If ways of understanding reality are
similar to all human beings, it is because all of us have
the same biological design for interpreting experience:
the human brain.
“Brain science” - a combination of neuroscience,
cognitive science and psychology – is a rapidly evolving
area of study. Like the new computer you bought two years
ago that is now obsolete, new evidence will often refute
or modify past studies. There is also the added confusion
of the media taking hold of a claim in its infant stage and
exaggerating or distorting the original scientific evidence.
The “Mozart
Effect” is one such example, as well as the “use
it or lose it” debate popularized in the previous decade.
Those on the “use it or lose it” side of this
debate argued that a narrow window of opportunity exists
from ages zero to three, the most important period in brain
development in a person’s life. While it is true that
infant’s brains experience dramatic growth at this
time, the main assumption of this myth is that once the window
closes parents and teachers have little else to work with.
By the time children attend kindergarten, it’s too
late, especially in the realm of mental, musical and artistic
development. As Hillary Rodham Clinton said at the 1997 White
House Conference on Early Childhood Development and Learning,
this emphasis on the brain does ''ratchet up the guilt.''
According to Dr. John Bruer author of The Myth of the First
Three Years—A New Understanding of Early Brain Development
and Lifelong Learning, the assumptions of this debate do
have basis in real science.
The brain does produce a higher number of synapses (learning
pathways connecting regions of the brain) during the first
3 years of a child’s life, yet our brains continue
to produce brain cells – which affect our capacity
to learn new skills - throughout our entire lives. So the
good news is that if we weren’t exposed to Mozart or
were not enrolled in expensive “enriched” preschools
before all of our synapses stopped firing around the age
of 3, we are still equipped to learn for the rest of our
lives. Our brains are not, as Rob Reiner, the Hollywood director
and creator of the "I Am Your Child" campaign proclaimed, "cooked" by
the time we are 10.
Evidence in neuroscience supports the position that while
we have a greater amount of flexibility as infants, it is
because the nervous system is “pruning” itself
(many of the millions of synapses created as babies are “pruned
away” by the time we reach puberty) and development
at this stage is occurring at a great pitch . What occurs
to our brains as we become adults is a refinement of this
process. While we may lack flexibility as we grow older,
we do gain the efficiency of implementing what we know. In
fact, an exciting discovery in neuroscience is that brain
structure is continually affected by experience.
''Our brains remain remarkably plastic and we retain the ability to learn throughout
our lives,” Bruer writes.
Brain science – or brain-based learning - as an education theory has
become a cottage industry replete with consultants, “brain science certification” courses
and products that parents and educators can buy. As a new field, brain-based
learning is composed of a mixture of basic results from cognitive science,
experimental psychology and, at times, rather ill-informed brain science.
According to Bruer, many consultants are putting together
what they know about the brain with what they learned at
education graduate school into a “kind of plausible” story
told to teachers. Yet he does not rule out the possibility
of brain-based education being incorporated into an educational
curriculum – in the future. A few decades from now,
for example, brain science may be able to give us insights
into individual learning styles, with the possibility of
having many different educational models.
Evidence consistently reveals how each brain is unique,
and that individuals asked to perform the same task may be
using mental calculations and different brain circuits to
arrive at the same solution. This is where education can
aid the individual learning process, by deciphering what
kind of learning styles are difficult for some and more natural
for others, keeping in mind that some stress is useful in
brain development and it is necessary to integrate different
learning styles in our education.
Cognitive science and psychology consistently inform us
that, regardless of individual preference or aptitude, many
different kinds of learning experiences are necessary. Learning
numbers, facts and foreign words, for example, are learnt
best through drill practice and repetition. Problem-solving
abilities are increased through experiential learning. Confucius’ famous
dictum states it best: "Tell me, and I will forget.
Show me, and I may remember. Involve me, and I will understand."
Eric Jensen, a former high school English teacher, is the
author of Teaching with the Brain in Mind and Arts with the
Brain in Mind. He is also the co-founder of Jensen Learning
Corporation, an organization that trains professionals (Jensen
works extensively with Fortune 500 companies) and educators
in brain-based learning techniques.
Jensen defines brain-based education as a multi-disciplinary
approach based on what we currently know about how our brain
learns. Yet in his essay, Brain-Based Learning, Truth or
Deception?, Jensen points out that brain research “proves” nothing.
“There is no body of brain-based research that justifies
every strategy of so-called "good teaching," he
writes. “In fact, most of what passes for good teaching
is a collection of folk wisdom, basic psychology and common
sense refined by trial and error. However, new findings can
steer all of us in more productive directions.”
Jensen attends conferences as a member of the Society for
Neuroscience, visits laboratories and interviews scientists
extensively to find out what they are discovering in the
field. He's finding that many recent discoveries in brain
science that have practical classroom applications. They
include findings supporting evidence that:
• The human brain can and does grow new cells
• Hormones can and do impact cognition
• Movement influences learning, as does music and art
• The brain can rewire changes
• Space, relational learning and recall learning are effective
• The brain learns things at crucial times in its development
• Time plays an important role in the learning process.
• Nutrition plays an important role in learning and memory
• Chemicals have specific functions and activating the right ones is crucial
to the learning process.
As Jensen concludes, these discoveries are cross-disciplinary. “Critics
who worry over where the research comes from are missing
the point,” he writes. “When you synthesize it
with other fields like sociology, chemistry, future studies,
anthropology, therapy and others, you can get some powerful
applications.”
For more information:
http://www.jlcbrain.com/what.html
http://www.jsmf.org/about/jbio.htm
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