Where two fields of science meet, a new one can be born. Biomedicine has the parents biology and medicine, biochemistry from biology and chemistry and neuropsychology from neuroscience and psychology. There is still no such thing as neuropedagogy though, or, the other way around: pedagogical neurology. However, it is not difficult to see that it could be a fruitful combination.
In ‘Pedagogical Anthropology’ (1913) Maria Montessori wrote: “in order to educate, it is essential to know those who are to be educated.” Almost a century later these words are still very true. Even so, many of the recent developments in education can be characterized as politically (not empirically) inspired experiments, at the expense of lost potential and – maybe even worse – causing a slow extinction of Teachers: those people who can do the magic of imparting knowledge to their pupils.
At the same time, research on human development and learning continues steadily in for example developmental neuropsychology. There has been much progress in understanding the workings of the human brain. When Maria Montessori wrote her book, neuroimaging had yet to be born and experimental psychology had not yet collected the large amount of data on both normal and abnormal development; so she worked with insights from anthropology instead. Now the data is available and the knowledge is there, but they seldom find their way to modern pedagogy.
As a consequence, those who should benefit from education suffer. An example: it has long been known that children are very good at language acquisition (of their mother tongue); insights from linguistics show that this has to do with their capability of memorizing and the fact that they do not bother with rules, strategies and exceptions as much as adults do. In their education though, this is not acknowledged. Instead, they are asked at a very early stage to develop their own strategies and memorization progressively disappears from the curriculum.
“In order to educate, it is essential to know those who are to be educated.” This especially holds true for those who educate the educators. Much knowledge still remains unused, apparently the gap between neuroscience and pedagogy is too large. This calls for a bridge: neuropedagogy.
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