5 Mind and Brain

I largely agree with the conclusion of this chapter that the findings of neuroscience are of limited use to education at the current level of understanding. It's likely that we can safely surmise that learning has occurred when we see increased dendrites in a certain area of the brain, but a lack of a concentration of newly formed dendrites does not necessarily indicate a concomitant lack of learning.

By analogy, in an alphabetic written language such as English (as opposed to a logographic language such as Chinese), knowledge of the individual letters is not sufficient to determine the words, grammar, and meaning of written text. With only knowledge of the alphabet, it would be ridiculous to attempt to determine whether learning occurred by looking at a student's notebook. The simple act of writing shows that something happened, but was it learning or was it a love poem to a nearby student? If it was learning, was it correct? In contrast, an absence of notes does not indicate a lack of learning. Personally I find it nearly impossible to take notes and pay attention to what's happening in class. I generally only take notes when I am confused. Similarly, a lack of a high concentration of new dendrites could indicate that any learning that occurred was distributed across many areas of the brain, and connected enough to prior knowledge that little rewiring was necessary.

Neurology may one day be of more specific use to education, but at present, it appears to be dealing with a more fundamental layer of brain function and is no more useful to pedogogy than subatomic physics is to medicine. However, for the purposes of public relations, we should seize upon any opportunity to make a connection between neuroscience and pedogogy that presents itself.