How Do All The Different Accounts of Learning Interact With Each Other?

Neurobiological accounts of learning, that is what can be gained through neuroimaging regarding memory, the impact of our environment upon our development, intelligence and the advantages of repetition (plasticity) offers us so much potential. Much can be learned about how teachers can shape the classroom, how children can be understood more effectively and curriculum content.

One of the challenges in how all accounts of learning interact with one another is a potential reluctance within some disciplines to do so. Byrnes (2001) argues that there is much reason for psychologists and educationalists to understand the relevance of neuroscience because it generates surprises and can corroborate or refute contemporary models of learning. But he also highlights some of the reservations and tensions which linger on between the disciplines (Byrnes 2001: 9).

A truly interdisciplinary approach towards how we learn, understands the complexity of the matter in hand. Cooper and Geake’s position enable this through using a biopsychosocial approach. Through understanding the neuroscience of the development of the brain and the mind, we can understand that “no two brains are, have ever been, or will ever be, identical” (2003). Accepting that we are all individuals enables us to be curious rather than prescriptive and alienating. One of the greatest challenges of all and possibly the least explicitly discussed, is that we are all individuals being driven through a ‘one size fits all’ system.

However, Cooper and Geake (2003) argue that a model that incorporates neuroscience, actually helps prevent the marginalisation of teachers as ‘knowers’. The power has been centralised to the point that teachers have less and less involvement in the creation of curriculum based activities and control of the classroom. A multi-disciplinary approach, using a shared language, develops teachers professionally.

Bhaskar (2006) argues that a critical realist approach fully allows us to engage with a more holistic way of viewing accounts of learning. By using the example of Emma, he is able to demonstrate how she can supported and understood more fully with her eating disorder. A psychological, a biological and a social lens enables this.

Howard Jones (2016) demonstrates the fullness by which he brings together the disciplines in his programme observing four year olds currently showing on Channel Four. Just this week, a little boy, prematurely born by eight weeks, was struggling with his speech. Through a historical lens we can understand that children are living on through earlier and earlier premature births, because progression within science and technology has enabled the development of the equipment to allow for that. Psychologically we can explore what this might mean for him within the group and also in the long term because difficulty in communication may manifest in other ways; social isolation and behaviour others may find challenging as he seeks to be understood. Neuroscience may be able to show through neuroimaging particular areas of the brain that may be different for him as a consequence of a premature birth.  Sociologically, we might look at the hidden social structures at play in terms of how this little boy may receive help, for example, the socio-economic status of the family.

Brown Explores the hidden structures more deeply looking at ‘sociocultural mechanisms’ such as group dynamics and also who chooses the curriculum, who decides what is worthy of being learnt. Politically, in 2014, the then Education Secretary, Michael Gove decided to remove Of Mice and Men and To Kill A Mockingbird because they were not British, from the English GCSE Curriculum much to the horror of many educationalists. A Level Art simply ceased to exist this year.

Knowledge is power, as shown by Howard-Jones (2011) as he explains that not being engaged in a multi-disciplinary approach can lead to myths as shown in his survey on graduate trainee teachers.  Cooper and Geake (2003) also assert that teachers would become less marginalised were neuroscience to interact more with other disciplines and how this can be applied in the classroom.

Taking the view that we are all individuals (neuroscience), that this is not a level playing field (sociology, politics, biology, health) and that we are wired through connection (interpersonal neurobiology, psychology) then it becomes very clear that the education system (politics) is not fit for purpose in the 21st Century mainly by refusing to engage with all the knowledge that we have.

Diversity without using a meta theory such as critical realism for understanding the world, takes us to a dark place indeed. The reluctance to incorporate neuroscience due to fears of biological determinism pales into significance when we start to unpick the marginalisation of so many children and young people offered by not engaging with all the disciplines that we can.

REFERENCES:

Brown, G (2009) ‘The ontological turn in education’, Journal of Critical Realism, 8:1, 5-34

Bhaskar, R & Danermark, B (2006) ‘Metatheory, Interdisciplinarity and Disability Research: A Critical Realist Perspective’, Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research, 8:2, 278-297

Byrnes, James P (2001) Minds, brains, and learning: understanding the psychological and educational relevance of neuroscientific research New York: The Guilford Press

Davis, A (2004) 'The Credentials of Brain-Based Learning', Journal of Philosophy of Education 30:1, p. 21-36

Geake, J, & Cooper, P (2003) ‘Cognitive Neuroscience: implications for education?’, Westminster Studies in Education, 26:1, 7-20

Gillard D (2011) Education in England: a brief history www.educationengland.org.uk/history (accessed online 17/11/2016)

Howard Jones, P (2011) ‘From brain scan to lesson plan’, The Psychologist, 24:2, 110-113