T9 Neuroscience is a collection of disciplines
T9
Neuroscience is a collection of disciplines
Tony Brown (2013) Can neuroscience talk sense to education and politics? Hard science – neurology, molecular biology, physiology, genetics – and softer sciences like psychology. Brain imaging techniques have made an enormous contribution to our understanding of brain function. Some neuroscientists behave as though their work is divorced from the social world of humans and that cannot be good news. Neuroscience is a social science, no matter how hard and techie the component disciplines that supply a lot of the knowledge base. Education resists science: many teachers preferring to see it as an art, a practice, despite the obvious need for training to precede qualification. For Lib-Con alliance politicians, education is an expensive inconvenience. They are busy preparing the complete sell-off to big business who will be encouraged to sell education to us. Neuroscience needs to speak to educators. An open and frank discussion is overdue, not helped by the reticence of some educators to face the scientific facts about some of education’s practices. Neuroscience is prey to those who want to use its findings to justify their own position, even where this is misogynistic, anti-democratic or elitist. It can be used to reinforce stereotypical views of any group. It is vulnerable to latter day eugenicists who want to argue that education is wasted on the young, the poor, the outsiders, the “others”. Good neuroscience experimentation has debunked the nonsense of “right-brain” means arty and creative while “left-brain” means scientific and rational. Nevertheless, there are plenty of books out there peddling the nonsense – because even if it doesn’t make for good education theory and practice, it makes money. The news from neuroscience is that the brain is plastic – it develops, changes, self-organises, self-modifies and recovers from damage in amazing ways. It remains plastic for much longer than we anticipated. It continues to develop and show increasing capability beyond childhood and into adulthood. Intensive, fulltime education can have dramatic effects beyond 16, 18 and even 20, and education needs to talk to neuroscience about what is possible at all ages from birth onwards. The political elite are currently busy ignoring the findings of neuroscience in their grab for votes. They want an education system that models their political ideology. They want to twist neuroscience findings so they can argue that selection is good for 11-year-olds, that children’s brains are hard-wired by the age of 5 and that some children from elite families will do well in “grammar schools” with the rest of the nation’s children dumped into “education factories” that are tied to a national curriculum which prepares them as factory fodder to receive instructions from their more intelligent betters, rather than encouraged to use their creative potential to solve problems and contribute directly to the economic and social wealth of the country. Many top scientists are appalled by the politicians’ views of elitism based on nonsensical arguments of “innate intelligence” and “fixed potential”. Neuroscience has shown that brain development is not usefully described by a biological model. Our development is not just genetically determined. Our brains are made the way they are by experience, culture and, of course, the quality of education we experience. There are many more similarities between our brains than there are differences. Reference The Royal Society (2011) Brain Waves 2: Neuroscience: Implications for education and lifelong learning. ©Routledge/Taylor & Francis 2014
Neuroscience is a collection of disciplines
Tony Brown (2013) Can neuroscience talk sense to education and politics? Hard science – neurology, molecular biology, physiology, genetics – and softer sciences like psychology. Brain imaging techniques have made an enormous contribution to our understanding of brain function. Some neuroscientists behave as though their work is divorced from the social world of humans and that cannot be good news. Neuroscience is a social science, no matter how hard and techie the component disciplines that supply a lot of the knowledge base. Education resists science: many teachers preferring to see it as an art, a practice, despite the obvious need for training to precede qualification. For Lib-Con alliance politicians, education is an expensive inconvenience. They are busy preparing the complete sell-off to big business who will be encouraged to sell education to us. Neuroscience needs to speak to educators. An open and frank discussion is overdue, not helped by the reticence of some educators to face the scientific facts about some of education’s practices. Neuroscience is prey to those who want to use its findings to justify their own position, even where this is misogynistic, anti-democratic or elitist. It can be used to reinforce stereotypical views of any group. It is vulnerable to latter day eugenicists who want to argue that education is wasted on the young, the poor, the outsiders, the “others”. Good neuroscience experimentation has debunked the nonsense of “right-brain” means arty and creative while “left-brain” means scientific and rational. Nevertheless, there are plenty of books out there peddling the nonsense – because even if it doesn’t make for good education theory and practice, it makes money. The news from neuroscience is that the brain is plastic – it develops, changes, self-organises, self-modifies and recovers from damage in amazing ways. It remains plastic for much longer than we anticipated. It continues to develop and show increasing capability beyond childhood and into adulthood. Intensive, fulltime education can have dramatic effects beyond 16, 18 and even 20, and education needs to talk to neuroscience about what is possible at all ages from birth onwards. The political elite are currently busy ignoring the findings of neuroscience in their grab for votes. They want an education system that models their political ideology. They want to twist neuroscience findings so they can argue that selection is good for 11-year-olds, that children’s brains are hard-wired by the age of 5 and that some children from elite families will do well in “grammar schools” with the rest of the nation’s children dumped into “education factories” that are tied to a national curriculum which prepares them as factory fodder to receive instructions from their more intelligent betters, rather than encouraged to use their creative potential to solve problems and contribute directly to the economic and social wealth of the country. Many top scientists are appalled by the politicians’ views of elitism based on nonsensical arguments of “innate intelligence” and “fixed potential”. Neuroscience has shown that brain development is not usefully described by a biological model. Our development is not just genetically determined. Our brains are made the way they are by experience, culture and, of course, the quality of education we experience. There are many more similarities between our brains than there are differences. Reference The Royal Society (2011) Brain Waves 2: Neuroscience: Implications for education and lifelong learning. ©Routledge/Taylor & Francis 2014
