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Brains and the School System
For the past week the Toronto Star has been publishing ”Brainstorm, a series about the brain and the education system”, written by Alanna Mitchell, the 2008 winner of the Atkinson Fellowship. The articles have focused on the latest brain studies and how they could affect education and classroom learning. She writes:
“And that means scientists can start explaining why, biologically, certain types of teaching work and others don’t. They are piecing together the science of learning. And therefore teaching.”
The series has prompted letters about how bad ‘drill and kill’ is for our students and that we should be focusing on creativity. Too bad Ms Mitchell didn’t read the studies about what works in teaching reading or interview Dan Willingham, who talks about brain-based education below and here. Cognitive scientists have long known how the brain works to learn fundamental skills. See Malkin’s entry on Success for All below. In the video, Professor Willingham says that the most effective teaching methods use direct instruction.
School For Thought worries that this will become another fad that will be misinterpreted by the school system, and ten years from now we will still be lamenting that our kids can’t read or do math without counting on their fingers.