Text 597, 262 rader
Skriven 2004-10-31 16:56:00 av Michael Ragland (1:278/230)
Ärende: Future Comprehensive Brai
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Recent Cognitive Science Developments Pose Major Educational Challenges 
This brief article was shared by Professor Sylwester with the Initiative
in April 1996 after his participation at the November 1995 Wingspread
conference. 
 
Dramatic advances in brain imaging and other research technologies are
moving cognitive scientists towards an unprecedented view of our brain
and its functions. This has led to an intense interest in the
development of a comprehensive brain theory that will be of the
scientific magnitude of E=MC2, in that it will spark a revolution in the
cognitive sciences analogous to the revolution in physics that 

Einstein's theories sparked. The theorist who develops the theory will
immediately join the ranks of the great scientists. 

This comprehensive brain theory will emerge in part out of Charles
Darwin's discoveries about natural selection as a scientific explanation
for biological diversity (about 150 years ago), Albert Einstein's
reconceptualization of time/space/energy/matter in his theories of
relativity (about 100 years ago), and James Watson and Francis Crick's
discoveries about DNA as the cellular mechanism for Darwinian natural
selection (about 50 years ago). 
It's difficult to predict when such a major theory might actually
emerge, but it probably won't occur before the turn of the century, and
will certainly contain elements that will be culturally and
professionally controversial. Our profession may thus have five years or
so of lead time (1) to begin to shift from its current
social/behavioural-science orientation to incorporate the biological
sciences that are now answering the teaching/learning questions that
have long mystified us, and (2) to focus our energy on trying to
understand the development before we seek practical educational
applications. 

Educational leaders must therefore develop a functional understanding of
our brain and its processes, so they'll be able to develop and evaluate
educational applications, and deal appropriately with the controversies
that will certainly arise. Uninformed educators will become vulnerable
to all the pseudoscientific fads, inappropriate generalizations, and
dubious programs that will certainly emerge. 
This article introduces three important potentially controversial issues
that will probably be incorporated into the global brain theory. The
readings at the end of each section are accessible to educators with a
limited background in science. They will get you deeper into the issue,
and so help you to use the article as an effective discussion guide with
colleagues and students. 

The comprehensive brain theory will use biological and not disembodied
concepts to explore our brain and its conscious/unconscious processes. 

1. It's important for educators to understand that this theory is
emerging out of the material world of biology and Darwinian natural
selection. It will thus seek to explain cognitive behaviour through the
electrochemical actions of neural networks, and not through such
disembodied concepts as mind/spirit/soul/enthusiasm. It's not that the
theory will necessarily argue that God doesn't exist, but rather that
the concept of God emerges out of theology and philosophy, and not
biology. Thus, most biologists currently believe that they must use
biological concepts and principles to explain organisms and their
activities, and so they can't include an external non-biological
design/directive force in the equation. The theory will thus probably
argue that our body/brain is a self-organizing system that draws on its
long genetic history and current environmental challenges to organize
and maintain itself. 

The theory will argue that the same natural selection principles that
created biological diversity over aeons of time operate within our
lifetime to regulate the development and maintenance of our brain's
neural networks. The evolutionary base of the theory will obviously
disturb those who reject Darwinian evolution, and this may spark
educational controversies. 

2. The theory will further argue that natural selection can explain many
things that we currently view as taught and learned. We are born with a
brain that is genetically tuned to the environment in which it lives,
that is born capable of solving many survival challenges. We don't have
to learn how to breathe or suckle, or to recognize different line
segments and tones (although we have to learn that the line is called
vertical and the tone G#). The theory will probably eventually lead to a
controversial reconceptualization of such concepts as teaching and
learning. 

3. Consciousness will be a central problems in the development of the
theory. Consciousness refers to the subjective way in which we can
combine and experience, but can't precisely describe, the objects and
events in our physical environment (such as the redness of a red ball,
the painfulness of an injury, the joy of love). 

Our brain uses several separate sensory systems (that scientists
understand) to divide and process incoming information, and each system
does further separate analyses (such as color, shape, and motion in
vision). A major issue in consciousness (that scientists don't yet
understand) is the binding problem - how/where/when our brain recombines
or synthesizes all the things it has separated. For example, we have a
unified impression of a red ball rolling along a table, even though the
color, shape and movement are all processed in separate visual areas and
no one area sees the red rolling ball. Our profession has a related
problem, in that we have a much better understanding of how to teach
analysis than synthesis/metaphor/creativity. 

Understanding the mechanisms of consciousness will obviously be an
important discovery, but reducing consciousness/joy/love/beauty/metaphor
to the mere actions of neurons will certainly disturb those who will
view such reductionism as the loss of something indefinitely human. The
comprehensive brain theory will propose organizational structures,
systems, and priorities that differ from current perspectives 

1. We've tended to think of ourselves and our behaviour in rational
logical terms, but our emotions more often direct the decision. Emotion
drives attention, which drives learning, memory, and behaviour - and so
emotion is the triggering mechanism for just about everything we do. Far
more neural fibers project from our brain's relatively small emotional
center into the large rational/logical cortex than the reverse. We can't
regulate and evaluate students' emotions, so schools have tended to
reduce the emotional (or contextual) loading of activities, and to focus
rather on the pure mastery of concepts/facts/skills. We've even turned
more student emotion into misbehaviour. 
The emerging brain theory will require us to return emotion to its
central cognitive position, and that will be difficult in a school that
values systematic management, order, and evaluation over emotional
comfort, flexibility, and intelligence. 

2. Our wary brain evolved to rapidly size up and respond to sudden
high-contrast changes that signal physical predatory danger and fleeting
opportunities for feeding/mating, and to ignore or merely monitor the
steady states, subtle differences, and gradual changes that don't
involve immediate survival. Thus, our brain is very good at
conceptualizing ambiguous emotionally-loaded problems - and weak at
anything that requires solitary sustained attention and precision (such
as worksheets). We've compensated by developing machines and management
systems to do many of the things we do poorly - and powerful portable
computers are now reducing our brain's former need to biologically
process much of the factual computational data that form the current
curricular base of the school. The school has become the last
pencil-driven institution in our increasingly internetted society - in
which our teenagers become screenagers when they're not in school. 

3. Further, many of the social problems we currently confront, such as
pollution, overpopulation, acid rain, creep up on us. Unfortunately, we
have a brain that responds easily to the final explosion, but not the
events that gradually led up to it. How do we reset our students' brains
to become more aware of gradually developing social problems, and to
seek solutions before rather than after the fact? 
4. Economy, efficiency, and measurable accountability are three current
important values in schools, but our biological brain doesn't really
pass the test on any of them. 
Economy: our brain comprises 2 percent of our body's weight, but it uses
20 percent of our body's energy, and it has multiple back-up systems for
most functions. Efficiency: Our brain has survived and thrived for aeons
because of its marvelous adaptive abilities, and not because it had
mastered the one efficient solution to a problem. An adaptive brain
seeks patterns and multiple solutions. 
Measurable accountability: Accountability is also a biological problem,
since a guiding principle in natural selection is that the organism
struggles for personal survival and not for the common good (although
personal success may genetically enhance the adaptability of a species).
External graded evaluation is thus less important to a brain that its
own internal reflective evaluation of itself, compared to others
(self-concept and self-esteem). 

Our brain's long maturation required us to become a social species. We
depend on each other, and so language has become a major cognitive
communicative mechanism - and probably helped to evolve our large
forebrain. We thus compete for individual success with the available
resources, but our individual success often depends on our ability to
function cooperatively. People with a high IQ often lead an unsuccessful
life because of their inability to live/work effectively with others.
The emerging brain theory will lead to a reconceptualization of the
nature and forms of intelligence within a social species. 

How do we insert individual 
biological/ecological values and priorities into a school system that
has historically defined itself as an efficient social system, run
inexpensively? 

The comprehensive brain theory will focus on fluctuating hormonal and
neurotransmitter levels when it explains such currently ill-defined
concepts as interest/motivation/joy/anger. 

1. Our brain's complex collection of neural networks process our
cognitive activity. Individual networks that process specific functions
combine to process more complex functions. Several dozen
neurotransmitter and hormonal systems provide the key chemical substrate
of this marvelous information-processing system. It's not clear how the
electrochemical properties that emerge out of the shape of a molecule
can carry neural information (or what information is, for all that) but
the comprehensive brain theory will have to use biological principles to
answer that difficult question. Consciousness and the nature of neural
information are the Holy Grail of the neurosciences. 

Scientists have correlated various mental conditions and maladies with
fluctuations in the amount and availability of certain neurotransmitters
and hormones. Thus, Schizophrenia and Parkins's Disease correlate with
high and low dopamine levels in the relevant brain areas. Fluctuations
in another neurotransmitter, serotonin, have recently been correlated
with high/low levels of self-esteem, and with the impulsivity that can
lead to reckless and aggressive behaviours (Such fluoxetine
antidepressants as Prozac, and hallucinogenic drugs as LSD work within
the serotonin system). 

This creates a potential social problem. If a given behaviour is
determined principally by the ready availability of certain combinations
of neurotransmitters, with chemically redefined such concepts as
freewill and responsibility, and we've removed a lot of the romance from
falling in love. For example, if an abnormally low level of serotonin
strongly biases one's behaviour toward aggressive violence, should
people with a chemically diminished capacity for freewill be held as
legally responsible for their acts as those with normal levels? It's not
difficult to imagine the profound legal ramifications of this issue. 

Further, as chemical testing technology improves, will it affect our
educational selection processes? Since high serotonin levels enhance
smooth motor coordination, will we test serotonin levels to help select
athletes, and students for violin instruction? Will we encourage the use
of chemical therapies to enhance one's possibility for such selection,
to reduce the negative effects of certain behaviour? The controversy
surround the use of Ritalin for ADHD students is but the tip of the
iceberg in this complex cognitive development. 

2. Neurotransmitters function in milliseconds. Hormones take much longer
to activate and dissipate, since they travel within our bloodstream.
Cortisol and other powerful glucocordicoids play very important roles in
operating our brain's response system to stressful situations, but the
system is set up to enhance survival in temporary, physically
threatening situations - and not in chronic socially stressful settings.
Chronic stress is a factor in a high percentage of the illnesses that
plague our society, and it can reduce the effectiveness of the neural
systems that regulate learning and memory. 

How can we develop a pleasant, stimulating and challenging school
environment that does not lead to chronic physically destructive stress
in the students it purports to serve? 
The emerging brain theory will provide our profession with the
biological guidelines for confronting the problems introduced in this
article - but a new Dewey/Paiget/Skinner will then have to emerge to
translate the biological theory into an educational theory that will
transform our profession. We currently aren't even sure what the
questions will be, let alone the answers - but how exciting that all
this is occurring on our watch! Don't delay the onset of your personal
exploration of the biological revolution that is already upon us, and
the educational revolution that will assuredly follow. Become a leader
and not a bystander. 
 
__________________________
21st Century Learning Initiative
http://www.21learn.org 
info@21learn.org

"Tiny green men might have been a better experiment."

Stephen Hawking
(paraphrasing from a "Universe in a Nutshell".
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