Thoughts on Teaching from the Neuroscience Perspective

The mind-brain conundrum notwithstanding, learning obviously takes place within the brain. The parts of the brain involved in learning are manifold and include the reticular system of the brainstem, the amygdala, hippocampus, and thalamus, the sensory cortices – visual/occipital, auditory/temporal, tactile/parietal – and the associative areas throughout the brain and especially in the frontal and prefrontal cortex. Learning also involves the motor cortex and the cerebellum. It requires that sensory, attentional, memory, associative, and retrieval processes take place in a more or less coordinated fashion; like a concert.

Studies show that stress experienced prior to any learning effort impedes memory and learning. This is because stress floods the system with adrenaline and glucocorticoid secretions from the adrenal gland. While adrenaline marshals the body’s resources to fight or run away – rarely appropriate or even feasible responses to most modern stressors – it narrows focus, giving it a tunnel-vision feel, and overwhelms the emotional amygdala while suppressing the hippocampus whose job it is to move experience into long-term memory. Curiously, adrenaline given following memory tasks improves recall.

Glucocorticoids are produced by the adrenal cortex. These hormones back up adrenaline through their influence on mineral absorption and muscle and fat metabolism required for sustained effort. Again, most modern stressors do not require sustained physical responses, so glucocorticoid secretion is in some sense redundant. However, too many stressors over too short a period of time produces a buildup of glucocorticoids, and elevated levels of these neurochemicals actually damage the dopamine neurons in the hippocampus. The long-term effect is diminished capacity for memory and learning. Stress is harmful, not only to the learning process, but to the physical systems of the brain in which learning takes place.

A notorious bumper sticker reads, “I survived Catholic school.” It’s ruefully funny, but what does it really mean? That the school experience was fraught with stress, but the person displaying the bumper sticker endured and weathered that stress? That the famously – albeit stereotypically – harsh nuns inflicted physical and mental punishment on their charges? How much more might the victim of an abusive educational system have learned had he or she not suffered daily threats, ridicule, or frequent corporal punishment. The adolescent (middle school and high school) social milieu is tough enough without layering institutional stressors on top of it.  

Teachers have a great impact on their students. Every adult carries indelible images of both kind and cruel teachers. Neurologist Martha Denckla states: “Every teacher is a brain surgeon… making little dendrites sprout and connect up neurons. So we are always training the brain.” Likewise, every teacher has the power to do harm. Sarcasm, ridicule, and excessive punitiveness have no place in the teacher’s bag of tricks. These things damage developing brains and squelch learning.

Good teachers harness their students’ innate impulse to learn as well as their creative bent. Creativity results from hard work carried forth in a minimally stressful environment. Schools that promote creativity emphasize cooperation – that uses the associative parts of the brain – over competition because competition is inherently stressful and often (note that some individuals, children and adults alike, perceive the stress associated with competition as eustress – good stress that does not trigger a buildup of glucocorticoids) interferes with the playful interworkings of the creative brain.

Good schools possess a culture of tolerance and respect among students and between students and teachers. Relationship is important. Stress is minimized and learning is, therefore, maximized.