More Groups Join Project on the Brain [NYTimes.com]

As someone who has worked in education for the past 20 years I continue to marvel at the timeless truth that the more we learn - the more we realize how little we know. The brain is the primary organ of learning - and for all the books and training provided for pre- and in-service educators - very little of it is informed by cutting edge research. Progress is being made - but there continues to be a tremendous amount of lag time between what neuroscience discovers about brain function/capabilities and the implications for classroom instruction.  As some education experts have written widely on, we may actually have been creating classroom settings that were "hostile" to how brains learn. This point was made explicitly by Dr. John Medina, author of Brain Rules, where he suggests that the typical classroom (rows, teacher in front, lecture style, etc) is the antithesis of what works for the human brain if you actually wanted to increase engagement, boost memory, and work with - not against - the human brain.

The human brain is simply astounding and breathtaking when you consider it is simultaneously the organic instrument we rely on to navigate and interpret a world around and with us - as well as the organic instrument through which we study it -  and yet it invites exploration as though it were an inaccessible life supporting planet in a galaxy a million light years away. Simply astounds me!