Do Recent Discoveries about the Brain
and Its Development Have Implications for Classroom Practice?
YES: Eric P. Jensen, from “A Fresh Look at Brain-Based
Education,” Phi Delta Kappan (February, 2008)
NO: Gerald Coles, from “Danger in the Classroom: ‘Brain
Glitch’ Research and Learning to Read,” Phi Delta Kappan (January 2004)
ISSUE SUMMARY
YES: Eric P.
Jensen, from the University of California, San Diego and co-founder of the Brain
Store and the Learning Brain Expo, argues that recent findings from
neuroscience research have important and immediate implications for classroom
practices.
NO: Gerald
Coles, an educational psychologist who writes regularly on a range of
educational issues, considers current claims about the neural bases of reading
problems. He concludes that the research is often ambiguous about whether
learning problems arise from differences in brain structure or function or from
limitations in experience or skill, which in turn affect brain development.
Research in the
brain sciences has proceeded at a rapid pace since the 1970s, due in large
measure to the advent of some amazing new technologies including positron
emission tomography (PET), single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT),
magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), functional magnetic imaging (fMRI), and
high-density event-related potentials (HD-ERP). These technologies provide
high-resolution images of the human brain, yielding information about not only structural
characteristics but also about how the brain functions “online” as an
individual processes perceptual information, solves complex problems, or makes
responses as simple as a button press or as complex as a spoken sentence. Some
of these techniques require sedation, exposure to radiation, and injections and
are thus of limited utility with young children. Other techniques, however, are
noninvasive, typically requiring only that the individual whose brain is being
“imaged” sit motionless in
A special
apparatus while performing the cognitive task being studied, which means that
many of these techniques can provide a window into the brains of even very
young children.
Use the questions below to guide your typed responses
Include the following in your typed, write up of this issue:
1. The issue (in your own words)
2. Side (YES or NO) that you have chosen and the author(s)
3. Before reading the issue, what is YOUR position on this topic?
4. State the arguments for the position that you chose (at least 5 arguments that the author(s) has discussed as well as their page numbers)
5. Are there any reasons to believe that the writer is biased? If so, why would they have these biases?
6. Did your position change after reading this issue? Why/why not?
7. Identify any propaganda techniques used, if any.
• Propaganda such as: generalizations, name calling, use of emotional language, appeals to fear, appeals to hatred, appeals to pride, use of slogans, and/or pseudo solutions