What Holding a Sheep’s Brain Taught Me About Teaching
Mind, Brain, and Education - science of learning - is rising but will it be remembered?
Last week wasn’t the first time I held a brain, but it was the first time I did so as a student of Mind, Brain, and Education (MBE).
In a world where the “science of learning” is increasingly finding its way into classrooms, I was intrigued to know what dissecting a sheep’s brain could teach me about how we teach human ones.
Alternating between flashbacks of the times I would secure an entire goat head split in two (saggitly like the brain in the picture above) from the live slaughterhouse in the Bronx near my school for inspection and dissection by my biology students and the stage at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School, in Montgomery County, Maryland, where a lesson about the brain’s regions was being shared with me by the neuroscientist facilitators assembled; I did my best to lock in and learn.
I was visiting the independent K-12 school and home of The Center for Transformative Teaching & Learning (CTTL) summer institute as a guest of its gregarious director, Glenn Whitman.
Glenn has been at the forefront of the MBE movement (see his 2016 book - Nerutoeach) for quite some time. However, it is only relatively recently that science of learning initiatives have gained traction across the U.S. educational landscape, as evidenced by the adoption of the science of reading initiatives being rolled out in school districts across the country (see
’s - The Bell Bellringer Substack to get up to speed).After all, as a quote displayed during the conference introductory session and attributed to neuropedagogical pioneer Leslie A. Hart from 1983,
“Teaching without an awareness of how the brain learns is like designing a glove with no sense of what a hand looks like.”
That is, if we as educators want to be able to deliver effective lessons where kids actually learn (and remember) what our lesson objectives ask of them, we should be equipped with a deep understanding of the levers we can pull to make this happen.
To help put theory into practice, Glenn and his colleagues at CTTL had assembled a team (including St. Andrew students) and learning cognition experts, as well as Teacher/Author/Substacker,
to lead those assembled on a four-day journey on best practices in MBE classroom incorporation.That is why on the morning of day 1, I was holding a brain—probing it gently, and searching for its various regions—each a beautifully intertwined network of neurons and their associated structures under the tutelage of a brain expert.
The session facilitators, alternating between anecdotes and hard science, helped me and my table group (as well as the rest of the conference attendees) slowly but surely navigate the dissection. By the end of our time, we had successfully identified each part of the sheep's brain and learned how it was associated with our body (and mind’s) functioning.
Fun fact: The smell-sensing part of our brain (olfactory bulbs) is directly above our memory regions, and the reason why certain scents can cause visceral reactions and trips down memory lane. (Later, I learned, this is called a Proustian effect).
Since attending CTTL, I’ve reflected back on my first few years in the classroom multiple times and wondered how my ‘let’s throw mud on the wall until something sticks in my students’ heads’ pedagogical practice could have benefited from brain science and cognition best practices like…
Interleaving: Returning to content and skills multiple times over a sequence of learning to increase retention.
Avoiding Neuromyths: Skip ideas (I’m looking at you, learning styles) that are not empirically supported.
Making Thinking Visible: Routines that help students’ thoughts become explicit, not hidden.
These practices—if taught to me explicitly early on in my career (heck, even before I stepped foot in the classroom)—would have gone a long way to making me a more effective teacher.
For this reason, I am cautiously optimistic and borderline excited about the recent developments in the science of learning initiatives unfolding across the country.
A word of warning, however, and as many educators who have been in the game long enough will aptly point out - we’ve been here before.
That is, we’ve seen how the latest educational initiatives (balanced literacy, common core, socio-emotional learning, culturally relevant pedagogy) have made initial splashes and then faded or become muddled with the curriculum or approaches they were supposed to replace.
See Kristen McQuillan’s - Chief Program Officer at StandardsWork - sponsor of the Knowledge Matters Campaign and former TNTPer - guest post in ’s The Next 30 Years Substack - for a great example and cautionary tale involving the science of reading and balanced literacy muddying already underway.
This does not mean there isn’t a benefit to incorporating some elements of “new” initiatives into pre-existing pedagogy. Instead, I am attempting to communicate the risks and pending tensions between MBE advocates and front-line educators that will likely arise if a top down, do this now, and no you won’t get any professional support or release time to learn how to do this effectively approach can (and may already be) causing well intentioned and effective initiatives to get lost somewhere deep in our subsconcious.
This very real risk is the reason I wanted to uplift the work happening at CTTL.
Not just because I got to hold the magical network of intertwined neurons that comprises the brain, but because convening together as a professional community to learn how we (and our students) learn best is our duty.
Indeed, in education, genuine growth often occurs when we step outside our comfort zones into places that are messy and unsettling, which, when combined, are often associated with the unmistakable sign that we are learning.
Some book news!
It’s hard for me to believe, but Learning Environment launches in less than two weeks! (out 8/26 - pre-order here)
And thanks to my incredible network (I’m lookin’ at you, Substackers), it has already reached #1 new release status in Amazon’s Science and Technology Education category (at least at the time of this post).
I mean… WOW!
In the spirit of celebrating success—a big theme in Learning Environment’s final chapter—I’m hitting the road to help get this book in as many educators’ hands as possible.
Hope you can join me and/or help spread the word (see events below).
With Gratitude,
Jared
Come see me (and Learning Environment) + friends featured in its chapters in the wild.
NYC
8/26 - Word Up Community Book Shop w/ Erick Espin - 6:30 - 8:30
8/28 - Bronxlandia w/Majora Carter and former student, now science teacher, Sabrina Mujica
8/30 - With New York Restoration Project (NYRP) at Sherman Creek Park; 10 - 12 with Shoreline tour and restoration opportunity.
8/31 - With NYC H2O - Ridgewood Reservoir - Queens, NY; 10 - 12, book talk followed by reservoir walk.
DC Metro
9/9 - Busboys & Poets (14th & V) in partnership with Teaching for Change, 6 - 7
9/19 - The Potter’s House; 7 - 8
9/24 - Wonderland Books w/daughter Poppy Fox and friend; 7 - 8