Teaching With the Brain in Mind

5 Getting
41
the
Brain’s Attention
Getting students’ attention and keeping
it has been the brass ring in the world
of teaching. Many among us admire
Hollywood teachers from movies like Stand and
Deliver, Dead Poets Society, and Dangerous Minds.
They rivet students’—and our own—attention, and
we respect colleagues who can imitate their methods
in real life.
But what if such a teaching model were wrong?
What if getting attention ought to be the
exception—not the rule? What if we’re placing
inappropriate and often unreasonable demands on
students, and the more that a teacher has a student’s
attention, the less genuine learning can happen?
That’s the focus of this chapter: attention and
its relationship to learning in light of recent brain
research.
The Attentive Brain
As each new school year begins, well-meaning
teachers quickly classify students into two categories:
those who pay attention and those who
don’t. Translated, that means the “good kids” and
the “problem kids.” Consequently, an enormous
KEY CONCEPTS
◗ The biology of attention
◗ Getting attention but not
keeping it
◗ The brain’s high- and lowattention
cycles
◗ An ADD update
◗ Implications for classroom
discipline