Why should educators study brain research?
Pat Wolf and Ron Brandt (1998), in an article about interpreting brain research for the classroom, point out that, “we have learned more about the brain in the past five years than in the past 100 years. Nearly 90 percent of all the neuroscientists who have ever lived are alive today. Nearly every major university now has interdisciplinary brain research teams.” They caution teachers about oversimplifying the connections between the science of how the brain learns and the use of this information in the classroom, urging teachers not to use neuroscience findings to promote “pet” programs or to adopt policies. (To read PBS articles about the challenges of applying brain research to education policy, click here. ) Instead, Wolf and Brandt urge educators to “develop a functional understanding of the brain and its processes” so that they won’t be vulnerable to “pseudoscientific fads, inappropriate generalizations, and dubious programs.” However, they also remind us that educators, with thei
