The desire for founding educational reform on a sound empirical basis has coincided with a period of impressive progress in the field of neuroscience and wide public interest in its findings, leading to an ongoing debate about the potential of neuroscience to inform education reform. But is neuroscience really suited to provide specific instructions for improving learning conditions at school? This paper explores the educational implications of neuroscience.

Science breaks new trails for technology but social science has yet to break new trails for social technology. Why is this? One hypothesis explains this with reference to the complexity of the social world and the still rudimentary nature of the social sciences. This paper argues for an alternative hypothesis, claiming that social science research is incapable of generating technologies not already part of the human repertoire. Drawing on a range of social science inquiry from economics to psychology, it shows (...) that the ?mechanisms? posited to explain normal and puzzling human behavior depend on familiar facts about humans which future investigations cannot overturn. Finally, it is shown that even when these familiar facts are themselves explained, the generative mechanisms posited to account for them are no longer within the sphere of the social sciences. (shrink)

This chapter presents emotion as a function of brain‐body interaction, as a vital part of a multi‐tiered phylogenetic set of neural mechanisms, evoked by both instinctive processes and learned appraisal systems, and argues to establish the primacy of emotion in relation to cognition. Primarily based on Damasio's somatic marker hypothesis, but also incorporating elements of Lazarus' appraisal theory, this paper presents a neuropedagogical model of emotion, the somatic appraisal model of affect. SAMA identifies quintessential components, facets, and functions of affect (...) necessary to provide a new domain, namely educational neuroscience, with a basis on which to build a dynamic model of affect serving to critique traditional cognitivist‐oriented curricula and instruction, and to inform an alternative: neuropedagogy. (shrink)

‘What does the brain have to do with learning?’Prima facie, this may seem like a strange thing for anyone to say, especially educational scholars, researchers, practitioners, and policy makers. There are, however, valid objections to injecting various and sundry neuroscientific considerations piecemeal into the vast field of education. These objections exist in a variety of dimensions. After providing a working definition for educational neuroscience, identifying the ‘mindbrain’ as the proper object of study thereof, I discuss, dispel or dismiss some of (...) these objections prior to presenting my motivations, aims, and prospects for this new area of educational research. I then briefly outline a positive case for educational neuroscience in terms of theories, methods, and collaborations, and conclude with a brief discussion of some challenges, results, and implications thereof. Naturally, the following considerations are but my own, some of which may be shared to some extent by others working in this area, as the case may be. (shrink)

This paper discusses the current fashion for brain-based learning, in which value-laden claims about learning are grounded in neurophysiology. It argues that brain science cannot have the ‘authority’ about learning that some seek to give it. It goes on to discuss whether the claim that brain science is relevant to learning involves a category mistake. The heart of the paper tries to show how the contribution of brain science to our grasp of the nature of learning is limited in principle. (...) Finally the paper explores the potential of brain science to illuminate specific learning disabilities. (shrink)

Elkhonon Goldberg's groundbreaking The Executive Brain was a classic of scientific writing, revealing how the frontal lobes command the most human parts of the mind. Now he offers a completely new book, providing fresh, iconoclastic ideas about the relationship between the brain and the mind. In The New Executive Brain, Goldberg paints a sweeping panorama of cutting-edge thinking in cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology, one that ranges far beyond the frontal lobes. Drawing on the latest discoveries, and developing complex scientific ideas (...) and relating them to real life through many fascinating case studies and anecdotes, the author explores how the brain engages in complex decision-making; how it deals with novelty and ambiguity; and how it addresses moral choices. At every step, Goldberg challenges entrenched assumptions. For example, we know that the left hemisphere of the brain is the seat of language--but Goldberg argues that language may not be the central adaptation of the left hemisphere. Apes lack language, yet many also show evidence of asymmetric hemispheric development. Goldberg also finds that a complex interaction between the frontal lobes and the amygdale--between a recently evolved and a much older part of the brain--controls emotion, as conscious thoughts meet automatic impulses. The author illustrates this observation with a personal example: the difficulty he experienced when trying to pick up a baby alligator he knew to be harmless, as his amygdala battled his effort to extend his hand. In the years since the original Executive Brain, Goldberg has remained at the front of his field, constantly challenging orthodoxy. In this revised and expanded edition, he affirms his place as one of our most creative and insightful scientists, offering lucid writing and bold, paradigm-shifting ideas. (shrink)