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Subject: Brain Surgery and Teaching Author: Ann Thompson (Hopeful) [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] Date Posted: 09:02:49 09/18/09 Fri What does brain surgery have to do with teaching? Unfortunately, almost nothing. Dr. David Clarke of Dalhousie U performed the first simulated brain surgery in preparation for the real thing. In order to create his model, Dr. Clarke used MRIs to map Ellen Wright's brain. He did not use a generalized, two-dimensional model the way educators do. To work on Ellen's brain, he mapped Ellen's brain. On August 23rd, 2009, Canada.com quoted Dr. Clarke: "...and all of that is specific to the patient you're about to operate on," Clarke said Thursday, of the procedure, which is the first of its kind in the world." Specific to the patient. Teachers need not be nearly as careful. We still train our teachers, and devise "new, state-of-the-art" programs based on a generalized two-dimensional model of... whose brain? We cannot perform MRI's on the brain of each child in our classes, but Dr. Clarke's statement forces us to consider again the complexity of human variability. Educators must stop thinking along that out-dated "bright" and "stupid" continuum, and start to respect the endless possibilities for differences in perception and ability levels for specific tasks. Perhaps we should begin to think of that Bell Curve as being three dimensional: a bell with an infinite number of skills to measure. One painful example of the failure of using a generalized brain model is our present system of barring children from learning to read until/unless they can link three sounds in succession to form little words. We already know that at least ten percent of our population is dyslexic and that dyslexics often have difficulty with "phonemic awareness". What percentage of our school population are we excluding by continuing to adhere to only one - of many - approaches to teaching reading? There are psychologists who agonize over labeling a child as sub-standard in any way. Yet we allow (even expect) teachers in the early grades to glibly sort their little humans into three groups of "bright-okay-dumb" kids. Dr Diana Hicks of the International Baccalaureate Organization reports thatwe have research that indicates these early grouping labels set the stage for the remainder of a child's academic career. Oh, the power of the early elementary teacher! [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]