7. Knowledge & the Brain

My first view on education was that it was elitist. It’s much more sinister than that. I struggled to find a way explain what is actually taking place until I came across the Ancient Greeks splitting knowledge into two types “Episteme and Techne”
 
Knowledge for the sake of knowledge and knowledge for a purpose.
 
“Techne” includes skill and knowledge together as elements of a craft – the process of creation.
Skill is a practical component of techne while knowledge explains things and the reasoning behind the craft.
Techne is powerful because of the combination of them both.
 
Knowledge for knowledge sake is the backbone of our education system as it can be compartmentalised and controlled. This was the power of the Academics as they dolled out what they wanted and when.
The UK has a particular problem in that being an Academic you are good worthwhile member of society whereas as being an Engineer or Salesman you are not. It‘s all about Status.
 
Design Technology is the most creative subject in schools.
 
The nearest terms we can use today are Technocrats and Bureaucrats but they have to be used in a broader sense than dictionary definitions.
 
Technocracy literally means strength and power coming from knowledge and skill. Power has the meaning here of ”ability to effect change“.
Knowledge gained from theory is converted through practice to skill.
Technocracy is an agent for social, economic, and cultural change.

 
Bureaucracy is the structure and set of regulations in place to control activity, usually in large organizations and government
Bureaucrat jobs were often “desk jobs” from the French word “desk”. It can also mean “office”.
Wikipedia
 
Bureaucrats tend to be very well insulated from responsibility for the external consequences of their decisions and actions as long as they stay formally within prescribed procedures.
Bureaucrats become defensive, rigid, and completely unresponsive to the urgent individual needs and concerns of the private citizens and outside organizations with which they come into professional contact. (“That's not my department. I cannot help you.”)
Glossary of Political Economic Terms
by Paul Johnson
 
Could we simplify Technocrats v Bureaucrats to:
 
Accountable Doers v Unaccountable Talkers
 
or simply
 
Doers or Talkers

Sources

The Brain

Neuroplasticity
Our existing education system is at odds with the current understanding of Neuroplasticity which is vital as it determines how we learn.
 
Neural pathways are a bundle of neuron cells that connect areas of the brain and nervous system. The neuron cells have the ability to grow when used and deteriorate if not. This is why we are told the only way to learn is by practicing which reinforces our long term memory, but more importantly, it increase the width of the pathway making data transfer quicker and more accurate.
 
Neuroplasticity is the study of the changing dynamics of the brain; the brain does not really change physical size or shape but alters the internal wiring structure.
The brain is not hard wired but remodels itself with experience. We all have the ability to learn at any age and should be encouraged to promote mental health.
 
Brain Plasticity: What is it? Learning and Memory
How the Brain Learns
Neuroplasticity; Learning Physically Changes the Brain
What is Neuroplasticity?
 

 
Genetics
 
“Current thinking is intelligence is 50% genetic and 20% nature. ” says Professor Plomin. BBC Radio 4, Life Scientific.
 
It’s important to note that this is about populations, not individual people. And it tells us nothing about the identities of the specific genes involved.
 
“Diverse cognitive abilities - mental abilities like spatial ability, verbal ability and memory, as well as learning ability like reading and maths - are all highly heritable” explains Professor Plomin.
 
There aren’t genes for literacy or mathematical aptitude, as any more than there are genes for pedantry or political learnings.
 
“You can’t fully express what’s in your genes until you’ve got the environment up to a minimum threshold”. E.Turkheimer
 
Professor Spector put it: “Spend your money on early years, on teachers, and let’s see what each child’s genetic potential is”
 
Quotes based on
“Unleashing the power of potential” by Dr Kat Arney. TES 22 Jan 2016
Not available to the public.

 

Socioeconomic status modifies heritablility of IQ in young children
 
“In the fractious history of scientific investigations of the heritability of intelligence, the effects of poverty, and the relations between them, there has been only one contention with which everyone could agree:
 
Additive models of linear and independent contributions of genes and environment to variation in intelligence cannot do justice to the complexity of the development of intelligence in children.
 
Our study and the ones that have preceded it have begun to converge on the hypothesis that the developmental forces at work in poor environments are qualitatively different from those at work in adequate ones.
 
Only recently have statistical models and computational capacity advanced to the point that less simplistic models can actually be fit. Although there is much that remains to be understood,”
 
Eric Turkheimer, Andreana Haley, Mary Waldron, Brian D’Onofrio, and Irving I. Gottesman
 
Genetics and intelligence differences: five special findings R Plomin and I J Deary, Nature
Maths and Reading Prof Robert Plomin, Kings College London.
 

 
Memory
When information passes from the short to long term memory it discards anything that is unimportant or does not understand. It checks and replaces existing long term memories or creates new memory areas.
 
Memory works in different ways:
Immediate Short Term processes input stimuli into a temporary storage.
Working Short Term where conscious processing takes place.
Any distraction interferes with accuracy and speed.
Limitations on how much information can be processed at one time.
Processing fatigue can set in after 10 minutes.
Limited variety of input stimuli reduces the depth of memory capability.
Emotions can have positive effects strengthening learning.
The brain inherently searches for novel stimuli.
 
Processing short term memories into long term takes place during REM sleep.
 
Long term memories are stored for more than 24 hours.
To maximise long term memory, the information to be processed must make sense and have relevance to the learner.
Existing memories can stop new information being retained.
 
Two distinct types of memory, everyday “Declarative”and “Procedural” habits.
 
Learners can be early birds or late owls maximising learning in the morning or evening.
 
How the brain learns
Easy ways to gain optimal learning in the classroom by activating different parts of the brain

 

 
Slow Learning
The speed of learning is enforced by the curriculum and not by the ability to learn. If you don’t understand the first part, the rest will be ignored this leads to boredom.
(This is nothing to do with slow learners.)
 
Give children time to learn by Brenwen Jeffreys, BBC Education editor.
 

 
Boredom
Johnny is disruptive because he’s bored.
What do we mean, how bored is he and what can we do about it?
 
Why boredom is anything but boring by Maggie Koerth-Baker, Nature, 12 January 2016.
 
Studying boredom is the new exciting science where there are more questions than answers. Scientists are trying to find ways to quantify boredomness with interesting results.
The most boring video was made of two men hanging clothes on a line and viewers were asked questions. The questions were more boring than the video.
There is even a “Boredom Proneness Scale”
 
Bleak House 1852 by Charles Dickens is the first recorded use of the word boredom (Wikipedia) and it appears there is no one definition but the effects seem to be widespread. Mental illness and binge drinking.
 
Boredom - a state of feeling bored.
Apathy - a lack of enthusiasm or interest.
Ennui - a feeling of listlessness and dysfunction arising from a lack of occupation or excitement.
 
The brain does not like boredom so it tries to find other things to do.
Our brain must be stimulated when we are awake to keep the brain cells active and growing so boredom is a problem of concern.
 
Children need to be taught how to overcome boredom which is more difficult to practice in a restrictive school environment rather than at home.
 
Mobile phones are used to relieve boredom by engaging the brain. Positive or negative?
 
Internet manners, Behaving Ourselves, — David Mitchell & Sherry Turkle, BBC Radio 4
“Children need to learn to beat boredom” says Nicky Morgan — Steven Swinford, Telegraph
60% of students are bored — Sandi Mann, The Guardian
Why are so many students bored? — Schunk/Pintrich/Meece, Education
— Seth Livingstone, Learning Liftoff
The Psychology of boredom — Adam Sinicki, Health Guidance

 
 
Anthropology and Education

Professor Gray’s “Seven Sins” highlight important concepts of how our educational system fails our children and he is more direct in saying our schools are more like prisons than factories. (p 66-84)
 
1. Denial of liberty without just cause and due process.
2. Interference with the development of personal responsibility and self direction.
3. Undermining of intrinsic motivation to learn (turning learning into work).
4. Judging students in ways that foster shame, hubris, cynicism and cheating.
5. Interference with the development of cooperation and the promotion of bullying.
6. Inhibition of critical thinking.
7. Reduction in diversity of skills and knowledge.
+. Interference with family life (Reader’s suggestion).
 
“Children don’t like school because to them school is - dear I say it - a prison and like all humans beings they crave freedom and in schools they are not free” (pg 67)
 
There are many more relevant blogs by Professor Gray on Psychology Today
 
Lessons from Sudbury Valley (pg85-109) gives an account of an American school in which the students are in total control even hiring the “teachers”. It’s a salutary lesson in what can be achieved when you allow children to choice their own destination. It’s not chaos.
 
I. Ways of teaching that we share other animals
Teaching is natural in at least some other animals as well as in humans. Almost all such cases of teaching involve relatively simple ways by which the teacher helps the learner practice some skill or acquire some information that the learner is highly motivated to practice or acquire. Teaching, then, is altruistic; it serves the learner at some cost to the teacher.
 
II. What can we learn from hunter-gatherers?
Hunter-gatherers did not teach by coercion and generally did not attempt to direct their children’s learning. Yet they did teach, in ways that preserved childre’ns feelings of security, trust, trustworthiness, and personal autonomy. Here is how they did it.
 
III. When is teaching an act of aggression?
I’ve known kids who would rather get a beating than a B. The methods of coercion we use in schools today are at least as hurtful as the “barbaric” methods of the past. I argue here that any coercive teaching is an act of aggression--from the viewpoint of the teacher as well as the student.
 
Five myths about young people and social media.
Many adults are puzzled, and some are appalled, by the amount of time teens spend online and by what they seem to do there. In her new book, “It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens”, Danah Boyd helps us make sense of teens’ uses of social media. Her data and analyses debunk some common myths about teens, technology, and social media....
 
Video game addiction, does it occur, if so why?
The concept of “video game addiction” has been rejected by the American Psychiatric Association, by many video game researchers, and by many psychotherapists who work with video gamers. I reject it too. Here’s why; and here’s how. You might help someone you know who spends lots of time at video games and seems unhappy.