Teaching With the Brain in Mind

Teaching with the Brain in Mind
114
encourage participation? Split your class into low
and moderate stress, and try it out. We all want to
be treated like professionals; let’s start acting like
curious, passionate learners who really want to
know about the best ways for our students to learn.
Knowing critical information about how to do
your job is no longer optional. May I suggest that
understanding recent brain research and its connections
to learning become standard requirements
for educators? You don’t need to be a biologist or
neuroscientist to grasp these key concepts. Avoid
getting hung up on the vocabulary or neural
processes. In fact, too much interest in the biology
of this movement may take up valuable time for
something else more important: the practical work
needed for the transformation of education.
This process has three steps. First, become
more savvy about the brain. Learn the key ideas
and principles. Second, use what you’ve learned at
the pace you can do it best. And, third, go for the
“big win” and begin school- and districtwide transformation.
This information is not a fad or a staff
development day to “do and get out of the way.”
It ought to be a long-term, guiding force in your
everyday decision making: “Given what we understand
about the brain and how it learns, is this
idea good for student learning?”
Now, the real work begins. We must use what
we know about the brain not just to stimulate our
curiosity, but to actively engage educators in the
change process. Use what we know about the
brain, not just with students, but our staff, too.
Brain-compatible specifics for staff development
include dialogue time, choice, reflection, teams,
journaling, peer coaching, more feedback, and
experimentation. From those will come innovative
models that optimally develop each teacher’s natural
capacities. With minimal downside risk, we
can create new, complex, orchestrated learning
communities that have the capacity to push traditional
achievement scores to new heights.
That, however, is not why I wrote this book.
I’m more interested in how we can all build a better
society. As an example, most families are still
unfamiliar with what it takes in the first five years
to get their child ready for school. That’s why I
suggest we start asking ourselves different questions.
What kind of world might we have in 20
years? What might the citizens of tomorrow really
need to know? Have we developed lifelong learners?
Do students know about complex systems?
Are we developing more participatory citizens for a
democratic society? Are we developing better
thinkers? Can they read, fill out forms? How can
we better encourage more community service, art,
music, and science? Do graduates have a love of
learning anymore? The evidence suggests that collectively
we are not successfully addressing those
issues.
Is brain-compatible learning the answer? It’s
one of them. Fortunately, we do have enough
insight already to make dramatic and powerful
changes in how we conceptualize, design, and
implement educational policy. While the research
doesn’t always give us the specific form or structure
for how to shift the paradigm, it’s clear that we
have enough to figure it out. Don’t wait for more
or newer research—there will always be updates.
It makes more sense to start with what you can do
today and take the first step. Some follow-up
resources are listed on page 126. Good luck. We
are counting on you.