Google apps
Main menu

Post a Comment On: Unedit my heart

"Dealing with Resistance to Change: Notes from Day 2 of the Art, Science & the Brain Conference"

8 Comments -

1 – 8 of 8
Blogger sally said...

great notes Leah!

I learned quite a bit at this conference. The over-riding message that I took home is that teachers on the ground are keenly aware of the benefits of art and arts-integrated education, but they are hand-cuffed by overwhelming curriculum demands and top down policies that prevent them from running their classrooms the way that is most conducive to learning. Contemporary neuroscience on learning strongly supports arts and arts-integrated education. So there is an opportunity now for leveraging the authority of neuroscience to exert positive influence on education policy at the top. This is good!

But. {cue rant}

My main concern with the conference was an overall lack of critical thinking about neuroscience itself. There was a tendency to treat the science as a more authoritative mode of knowledge about teaching than the experience-based knowledge gained from practice. Stuff like -- neuroscience shows that stress is bad for learning, while positive emotional connections while learning enhances long-term retention of content -- things that teachers already know. Teachers are happy and relieved to have neuroscience back this up, but their knowlege should always be given at least as much weight as the science, which doesn't happen in a classroom, but in a lab.

To my mind, especially if something as important as childhood education is at stake, it's a really good idea to remember that neuroscience is a fast-changing, critical, contingent and negotiated field of research. Some neuroscientific studies are better than others, and you want to be really really careful about what you are codifying into curriculum and practice.

Mariale Hardiman from Johns Hopkins is developing curriculum based on neuroscientific studies and I have to say it sounds really fantastic. She is working in close collaboration with neuroscientists and she is also reading and evaluating the original studies herself. She's an extremely exeperienced eductaor, sharp, clearly a critical thinker, and someone that I'd trust to take on the overwhelming task of assessing what neuroscience to implement and what to set aside. Go Mariale!

But I sure don't wouldn't want someone less rigorous with a different agenda, like say John Snobelen, reading the latest sensationalised neuroscience stories on Fox News and insisting that they get incorporated into the classroom. I wanna say be careful, when working with the top-down policy makers, that neuroscience doesn't get pitched as a quick-fix for education. Or... yike it could get real ugly real fast.

My biggest worry in all this is the way that people invoke neuroscience with the plural first person pronouns. "Our" brains do this and "our" brains do that, "we" respond like this and "we" respond like that. Or the term "the brain" is invoked, as if the brain was a universal standard to which we all adhere. But everyone's brain is different, and what neuroscience produces is information about statistical averages. Certainly there are many broad generalisations that can and should be made, but the awesome social authority of neuroscience makes it dangerous, because it can very easily be invoked to support normative, deterministic claims about 'human nature' as if we were all little robots and our brains were mass-manufactured CPUs, and if we deviate from the norm then we are broken or deficient (or, maybe worse, invisible and our realities unexpressed in the larger social fabric).

Right now, the findings of neuroscience converge with the needs of educators who want to be more effective, and that's wonderful. But I just think it's a good idea to proceed with caution. {/rant}

November 2, 2011 at 1:00 PM

Blogger Leah Sandals said...

Hi Sally,

Wow, thanks for your indepth analysis! It is scary the way that teachers may not be believed until "science proves them right". Also sobering is your note on how neuroscience discourse generalizes human identities and ignores differences.

I also appreciate your note on the limitations teachers feel are imposed on them in terms of teaching arts. I know there are a lot of great teachers out there (I've had a few!) and I have no idea how they do their jobs given all the administrative pressures, let alone managing the growth of more than 30+ individuals under their care at any given time!

November 2, 2011 at 2:32 PM

Anonymous Robert said...

You GO Sally! I'm wondering, what did you talk about at the conference?

November 4, 2011 at 10:54 AM

Anonymous Aurelie said...

I could not attend due to other commitments (Art Toronto 2011!). Thanks Leah, for your summary and thanks, Sally, for your well considered response. (By the way, I didn't think that was even close to a rant.) Webcasts would have been so appropriate given the topic at hand. Maybe next time.

November 4, 2011 at 11:22 AM

Blogger Leah Sandals said...

Hi Aurelie,

Yes, I found the timing awkward as well, given the fair. I wonder what other types of conferences might be out there. This organization, the Canadian Society of Education through Art, seems to have a regular conference, though it is less neurologically oriented:
http://www.csea-scea.ca/

November 4, 2011 at 1:19 PM

Blogger Leah Sandals said...

@Robert, I don't know exactly what Sally spoke on, but she was on a the closing keynote panel. So sorry I missed it!

November 4, 2011 at 4:15 PM

Blogger sally said...

I talked about my experience teaching neuroaesthetics to art students at the post-secondary level, but I didn't say much. Each person on our panel had 6 minutes!

November 6, 2011 at 1:55 PM

Blogger Leah Sandals said...

Teaching neuroaesthetics to art students... would like to see the results of that! It's so great that you're doing this kind of research, Sally. I look forward to hearing what the conclusions of your thesis are.

November 7, 2011 at 8:58 AM

You can use some HTML tags, such as <b>, <i>, <a>

Comment moderation has been enabled. All comments must be approved by the blog author.

You will be asked to sign in after submitting your comment.
Please prove you're not a robot