Glenda Mac Naughton
Associate Professor and Director Centre for Equity and Innovation in Early
Childhood, Faculty of Education, the University of Melbourne
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 emotionpacked.
Why has it stayed with you? Make some notes
Why did you come
to a session on
critical a look at the
brain?
What are 5
things you
know about
the brain &
learning?
What is similar/different
between what you know
and what I know?
What are 3
questions & or
niggles you have
about the brain &
learning?
What is similar/different
between your niggles and
mine?
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)
Poor brain
growth
Linear causality this causes that…
‘Tree-like’ logic
Early stress can have a
negative impact on brain
development
Early
stress
(The World Bank Group, 2002, p. 1)
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
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
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?
Early
stress
– Are there any A+ B = C’s?
– What degree of confidence do you have that
you can explain the causes of your learning?
Looking at some
research
brain
• 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?
1.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
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
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
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)
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…..
Other logic….
Linear causality - ‘treelogic’
-
cause and effect
hard facts
certainty
universality
knowable
• 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…
How do we…
• explain the ‘late bloomer’?
• argue for investment in lifelong 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
-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?
How confident of this
are you?
Where does your
confidence come
from?
• Tension 2: it’s not about us
in all our diversity
Does it embrace all?
The allure of beyond a reasonable doubt
The status of hard facts and ‘real’ research
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?
• Tension 3: it doesn’t like
our noisiness
Where is the noise?
How will you hear it?
The allure of beyond a reasonable doubt
The status of hard facts and ‘real’ research
tools for critical engagement with the
brain
– 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)
Tactics for
• Erasure
• Metaphor
• Binary analysis - attending
to and affirming the other
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?
Erasure
SEEING MEANINGS AS PROVISIONAL
the brain - what is the brain?
QuickTime™ and a
Graphics decompressor
are needed to see thi s picture.
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’?
Metaphor - a tactic to wonder a
new
• What metaphors can you generate to
describe how the brain works
• Try writing:
THE BRAIN IS A …. ? BECAUSE IT…?
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?
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
• 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
Binary analysis
• How does
this text
create
assumption
s about
what is
normal or
desirable?
• Who
benefits
from this?
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)
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
• How does humans. Using functional MRI, a German
this text
University has shown that when learning a
create
motor movement (in this case learning to play
assumption the piano), a great deal of the motor region of
s about
the brain is used. With experience, smaller and
what is
smaller regions of the brain are used. In
professional musicians, only very tiny regions of
normal or
desirable? the motor cortex are involved in their playing.
Thus practice makes neural networks efficient
• Who
and frees up regions of the cortex again to be
benefits
used for other things.( Jancke, L., et.al. 2000.
from this? Cognitive Brain Research. Vol.10(1-2), 177183.)
Binary analysis
• How does
this text
create
assumption
s about
what is
normal or
desirable?
• Who
benefits
from this?
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)
Binary analysis
• How does
this text
create
assumption
s 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)
Binary analysis
• How does
this text
create
assumption
s about
what is
normal or
desirable?
• Who
benefits
from this?
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)
Binary analysis
• How does
this text
create
assumption
s 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)
Binary analysis
• How does
this text
create
assumption
s 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).
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?
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?