Glenda Mac Naughton

1. Brain/mind learning: a critical look at the neurosciences Glenda Mac Naughton Associate Professor and Director Centre for Equity and Innovation in Early Childhood, Faculty of Education, the University of Melbourne

2. My early learning story:Miss George & the stinging blush A is for apple YOUR EARLY LEARNING STORY Share an early memory that you have of learning something ‘stinging’, ‘blushing’ or equally emotion-packed. Why has it stayed with you? Make some notes

3. Why did you come to a session on critical a look at the brain?

4. What are 5 things you know about the brain & learning? What are 3 questions & or niggles you have about the brain & learning? Listen for Listen for What is similar/different between what you know and what I know? What is similar/different between your niggles and mine?

5. What if Miss George knew: • Brain development is helped when children are encouraged to be active, to question and to build their own meanings • Young children’s brains process information best in ‘wholes’ • Positive, nurturing environments are important for healthy brain development • Stressful environments can reduce brain cells and neural connections (Catherwood 1999; Puckett, Marshall & Davis, 1999; Dockett, 2000)

6. Poor brain growth Linear causality - this causes that… ‘Tree-like’ logic Early stress can have a negative impact on brain development (The World Bank Group, 2002, p. 1) Early stress

7. Your own tree • Draw a tree with a single main branch - roots and all - to show what causes it to grow • AS YOU HEAR A CASUAL STATEMENT - - • ADD A NEW BRANCH A + B = C

8. A + B = C CI95%M+t(Ω=0.5 df =n-1) [SD/√n] =.35+2.447 [.108/√7] =.35+.10 Degrees of confidence - beyond a reasonable doubt The allure of beyond a reasonable doubt

9. Poor brain growth Linear causality - this causes that… ‘Tree-like’ logic What do you think directly caused you to learn and to remember your ‘early learning’ story? • Are there any A+ B = C’s? • What degree of confidence do you have that you can explain the causes of your learning? Early stress

10. ‘real’ Looking at some brain research • What is the title of the article? • What can we say collectively about the titles? • Read the - try to put it into your own words. • Read the - what ‘hard facts’ have they produced? Abstract Conclusion Do they offer any insights into the learning stories of you, me, Rani or the King?

11. The first years are critical to later development Children learn through their five senses Positive and trusting relationships with teachers matter to children’s learning Play is important to children’s learning Emotional well being, parent involvement and a healthy body are each important to young children’s learning Comenuis (1600s - European philosopher) Jenson (early 2000s - USA educator) Bailey (early 2000s - USA early childhood researcher) Rousseau (mid 1700s - European philosopher) Hubel & Weisel (1970s - neuroscientists) Pestolozzi (late 1700s - Italian educator & scholar) Froebel (early 1800s - German educator and philosopher) McMillan (late 1800s - British educator and health worker) Bower (late 1900s - USA neuroscientist) Who first said this?

12. What about… • Comenuis (1592 - 1670) - the first years are critical to later development • Rouseau - children learn through their five senses (1712 - 1788) • Pestolozzi (1746 - 1827) - positive and trusting relationships with teachers matter to children’s learning • Froebel (1782 - 1852)- play is important to children’s learning • McMillan (1860 - 1931) - emotional well being is important to young children’s learning as is parent involvement and a healthy body • And so on…..

13. Linear causality - ‘tree-logic’ cause and effect hard facts certainty universality knowable Other logic…. Rhizomatic logic change heterogeneity complexity

14. Another logic - rhizomatics? • The rhizome’s ‘lateral’ structure – a collection of mutually-dependent ‘roots’ and ‘shoots’ – is a metaphor of a dynamic, flexible and ‘lateral’ logic that encompasses change, complexity and heterogeneity. • We are becoming rhizomatically - we are not caused…

15. popular culture parents Draw a rhizome of a learning story: your own or the King & I - complex & shifting links - unpredictable shoots - overlaps teachers peers texts gender language race cognition class culture

16. Rhizomatics • How do we… • explain the ‘late bloomer’? • argue for investment in life-long learning if the early years matter so much? • plan for learners whose environments are ‘deprived’ in their early years? • Tension 1: it’s not about us in all our changeability The allure of beyond a reasonable doubt The status of hard facts and ‘real’ research

17. Reflect on your changability • What are the twists and turns in your life that make you the learner that you are now? • What changes in you that makes your learning story matter one day and not the next? • What is unstable in who you are now?

18. Rhizomatics How confident of this are you? Where does your confidence come from? Does it embrace all? • Tension 2: it’s not about us in all our diversity The allure of beyond a reasonable doubt The status of hard facts and ‘real’ research

19. Questions & niggles The real brain research • What are the origins of this piece of neuroscience? • With what groups of people or animals was it done? • How generalisable are the findings to the groups of people you work with? • Do the researchers attempt to generalise? Are the researchers confident?

20. Where is the noise? How will you hear it? Rhizomatics • Tension 3: it doesn’t like our noisiness The allure of beyond a reasonable doubt The status of hard facts and ‘real’ research

21. Linear causality? Rhizomatic logic Which explains you and your learning better? What are the pros & cons of each?

22. Deconstructing the brain tools for critical engagement with the brain

23. Deconstruction • A postmodern approach to analysis, which aims to show the fragility of all positive statements. Deconstruction points at the contradictions and cracks in any text and the assumptions it builds upon. (Alvesson, 2002, p.178)

24. Tactics for deconstruction • Erasure • Metaphor • Binary analysis - attending to and affirming the other

25. Erasing the brain - what can’t the word say? • Erasure • marking a term is inadequate for what we want to say • casting a shadow over it • highlighting strategic undecidability • playfully mistrusting a word What is the brain?

26. Erasure SEEING MEANINGS AS PROVISIONAL Erasure

27. Erasing the brain - what is the brain?

28. Erasing the brain - what can’t the word say? Re-imagine yourself: - your age, gender, culture, ethnicity, geography, historical time What is the brain? What cultural biases construct your ‘brain’?

29. Metaphor - a tactic to wonder a new Metaphor • What metaphors can you generate to describe how the brain works • Try writing: THE BRAIN IS A …. ? BECAUSE IT…?

30. Metaphor - a tactic to wonder a new • What is similar and different in your metaphors? • What is contradictory? • What are 5 metaphors could you not do without? • What do loose by choosing these? • Arrive from MARS - try to create a totally new metaphor • How does your culture bias the metaphors you use? • How do your metaphors bias meaning? • Whose voices are silent in your metaphors?

31. Meanings, brains and politics • Meaning is not fixed in words - we construct it through culture and through history. • Meaning based on binary thinking is political because it always silences an Other • Understanding how meaning works politically is critical reflection

32. Binary analysis • Binaries (are pairs) - what are the binaries that the text relies on to create its meanings? • How does this text create assumptions about what is normal or desirable? • Who benefits from this? • Disrupt the hierarchy - how is the norm exceptional? BE PLAYFUL WITH MEANING

33. Binary analysis Children with the fewest numbers of siblings perform the best on tests of intellectual skills and educational achievement. The reason for this appears to be that additional children dilute parental resources. These resources would include time, money and interactions.(Downey (2001). American Psychologist, vol 56(6/7), 497-504. (http://www.Brains.org/ downloaded 6.4.04) • How does this text create assumptions about what is normal or desirable? • Who benefits from this?

34. Binary analysis Practice not only makes perfect, it makes the brain efficient. What has previously been seen with monkey brains now has been seen on humans. Using functional MRI, a German University has shown that when learning a motor movement (in this case learning to play the piano), a great deal of the motor region of the brain is used. With experience, smaller and smaller regions of the brain are used. In professional musicians, only very tiny regions of the motor cortex are involved in their playing. Thus practice makes neural networks efficient and frees up regions of the cortex again to be used for other things.( Jancke, L., et.al. 2000. Cognitive Brain Research. Vol.10(1-2), 177-183.) • How does this text create assumptions about what is normal or desirable? • Who benefits from this?

35. Binary analysis According to Ronald Kotulak, the author of Learning How to Use the Brain, scientists learned more about the brain during the last decade than they learned during the entire century preceding it. So if you've been out of school for even five or ten years, chances are that much of what you learned about how the brain develops and functions is obsolete. Does it matter? Take a look at some of the latest research and find out. (Growing Bigger Brains, download 6.4.04) • How does this text create assumptions about what is normal or desirable? • Who benefits from this?

36. Binary analysis • How does this text create assumptions about what is normal or desirable? • Who benefits from this? The brain makes the most neural connections when it is actively involved in learning, therefore, learning should be multi-sensory and interactive. (December 1998 Education Week commentary, Is the Fuss About Brain Research Justified?, David Sousa)

37. Binary analysis Perhaps the most important thing to remember, however, is that the research shows that each brain is unique. The most effective teachers, therefore, provide many opportunities for enrichment and implement a variety of instructional strategies. Those strategies are most relevant and most successful when teachers base their efforts on what researchers have discovered about the brain. (Growing Bigger Brains, download 6.4.04) • How does this text create assumptions about what is normal or desirable? • Who benefits from this?

38. Binary analysis • How does this text create assumptions about what is normal or desirable? • Who benefits from this? "We need programs that give all prospective and current teachers a working knowledge of brain growth and development and that include frequent contacts with cognitive researchers to keep abreast of relevant research findings. With such a long-term commitment, teachers will have the competence to determine which classroom strategies are more compatible with the current understanding of today's brain.". (December 1998 Education Week commentary, Is the Fuss About Brain Research Justified?, David Sousa)

39. Binary analysis • How does this text create assumptions about what is normal or desirable? • Who benefits from this? Stimulating Environment Affects Learning. A child's ability to learn can increase or decrease by 25 percent or more, depending on whether he or she grows up in a stimulating environment. (brainconnection.com, download 6.4.04).

40. Why bother? • Meanings matter because they produce power • Power to define normality • Power to define what is desirable • Power to act on others • How do your meanings of the brain matter?

41. Questions for ‘brain research’ & its consumers • Whose voice is heard and whose is silenced in the use of brain research? • To what extent are traditionally marginalised voices present? • Who is not speaking today? • How have gender, ‘race’, ethnicity, ability & class been listened to? • Who has exercised power, how & with what effects? • Do the effects of ‘brain research’ reinforce or challenge unjust power dynamics? • How can we remake its effects justly?