Successful education is all in our heads…

Did you know that dyslexia may not result from the mixing up of  images but from confusion about sounds? Or that learning music can affect  fine motor skills?

Or, as researchers Mariale Hardiman and Martha Bridge Denckla report on the Dana Foundation site, that “… [T]he brain constantly changes with experience, makes new brain cell connections (synapses), strengthens connections through repeated use and practice, and even produces new cells in certain regions” – meaning, for instance, that just because a child or young adult doesn’t seem to have good mathematical or verbal ability at the moment doesn’t mean he or she can’t develop it in time ?  

A new field of study is emerging at the place where  education and  science flow into the same stream. It’s called neuroeducation and it combines groundbreaking study of the brain with new research about how humans learn.  

Exciting? You bet. After decades of emphasizing the science of teaching, educators and cognitive scientists may be headed for an important change: figuring out the many and best ways that humans take in knowledge, make use of it and develop their brains in the process.

This is creative in every way, from the dissolving of barriers between two closely related specialties and the new ideas about brain function that are being explored to the indications that creative education – both inventive means of teaching and the effects of studying creative disciplines such as arts – can have positive, long-term benefits for learners of every age and ability. 

Because experiences change the brain, positive environment and atmosphere may be as important to creating effective schools as innovative curricula and teaching methods.

That means a great deal is going to have to change in schools systems everywhere. Read the Dana Foundation article here and tell me what you think.