Neuromyths in Education

Lena shifted in her seat, staring at the blinking cursor on her laptop screen. Her final education paper was due in two days, and she was stuck. The topic was neuroscience and education—specifically, the myths that had shaped how people thought about learning. As a future teacher, she had always believed in concepts like learning styles, the left-brain vs. right-brain theory, and the importance of drinking eight glasses of water to keep the mind sharp. But something in her recent research unsettled her.

Her fingers hesitated over the keyboard before she typed: "How much of what we believe about learning is actually true?"

Two years earlier, Lena had sat in her Educational Psychology class, excited to learn about how the brain worked. Her professor, Dr. Marquez, had started the semester with a simple yet jarring question:

“How many of you believe students learn best when taught in their preferred learning style—visual, auditory, or kinaesthetic?”

Nearly every hand shot up, including Lena’s.

Dr. Marquez smiled knowingly.

“Now, let’s put that to the test.”

She split the class into groups and gave each a short story to memorise. Some received audio recordings, others flashcards with images, and some acted it out in a mini-play. After 30 minutes, they were quizzed. The results were shocking—there was no pattern. The ‘visual learners’ did not perform better with pictures, nor did the ‘auditory learners’ excel with sound. The best scores came from those who had experienced the information in multiple ways.

“That,” Dr. Marquez announced, “is the first neuromyth you’ve just debunked.”

Lena’s curiosity had grown from there. She dove into her research, discovering myths that had been passed down in classrooms for decades. One of the most bizarre was Brain Gym, a program claiming that rubbing invisible ‘brain buttons’ on the chest could improve cognitive function.

Her friend Kyle, a fellow education major, had even worked at a school where teachers encouraged students to press their ‘brain buttons’ before tests.

“Did it work?” Lena had asked, skeptical.

Kyle had shrugged.

“I mean, the kids seemed more confident, but that could just be the placebo effect.”

She later found out that no credible scientific evidence supported Brain Gym’s claims. The program had simply twisted legitimate neuroscience—like the importance of movement in learning—into something completely unproven.

Lena’s research took her deeper into another widely believed myth: the left-brain vs. right-brain theory. The idea that ‘left-brained’ people were logical and ‘right-brained’ people were creative was something she had heard all her life.

But as she read more studies, she realised the truth: the brain is interconnected, and no one uses just one side. While certain functions are more dominant in specific areas, learning and problem-solving require both hemispheres working together. The myth had likely stemmed from a misinterpretation of early brain imaging studies.

“Why,” Lena muttered to herself, “are these myths so hard to shake?”

Lena dug further. Why did teachers cling to neuromyths despite evidence disproving them? She found that educational neuroscience was rarely part of teacher training. Many well-meaning educators learned these ideas informally through books, workshops, and pop psychology.

Even the idea that sugar makes kids hyper turned out to be a misconception. Research showed that while parents and teachers often noticed children being ‘wild’ after eating sweets, controlled studies found no direct link between sugar intake and hyperactivity. It was more about perception than reality.

The implications were massive. If schools invested in neuroscience-backed teaching strategies instead of outdated myths, student outcomes could improve significantly. Instead of rigidly sticking to ‘learning styles,’ teachers could use multi-sensory instruction—engaging sight, sound, and movement—to help all students learn better.

The night before her final exam, Lena stared at her notes. She had spent months unraveling myths, but now she had to summarise everything she’d learned into a final argument. How do you convince people to let go of long-held beliefs?

She thought back to Dr. Marquez’s experiment—the shock of seeing the myth crumble before her eyes. People needed experiences that challenged their beliefs, not just facts.

As she wrote her concluding paragraph, she realised something: education wasn’t just about teaching facts; it was about teaching how to think critically. Myths thrived because people wanted easy explanations, but true understanding required questioning, testing, and adapting.

Lena’s paper, titled “The Mind Maze: Navigating Neuroscience and Education”, became a defining moment in her career. Years later, as she stood in front of her own classroom, she started her first lesson just as Dr. Marquez had.

“How many of you believe students learn best when taught in their preferred learning style?”

Hands went up. Lena smiled.

“Let’s put that to the test.”

This story is a #storified version of the following paper:

Howard-Jones, P. Neuroscience and education: myths and messages. Nat Rev Neurosci 15, 817–824 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3817

Stay Curious!

Mark