Norm Friesen presents a lecture by Alva Nae to the effect that "we are not our brains". And hence, "there are significant limitations to 'brain-based education:'"
- "Brains are not the same thing as persons. We are also our bodies, our actions, and our relations to others; and none of these are reducible to our brains or others' brains."
- "how valuable is it to learn that kindergarten-aged brains are stimulated in valuable ways from a bright, colourful environment, or that patterns in brain activity change as people gradually learn to do something new?"
- "It is much more productive to consider education a socio-cultural endeavour than an exercise in biological or neurological engineering...."
- "Basing" education and instructional strategies on the brain take us back to Cartesian dualisms and the problems associated with them."
These four criticisms are all variations on the same theme: persons are not brains, and education is (of/about/for) persons, not brains.
- "Brains are not the same thing as persons. We are also our bodies, our actions, and our relations to others; and none of these are reducible to our brains or others' brains."
- "how valuable is it to learn that kindergarten-aged brains are stimulated in valuable ways from a bright, colourful environment, or that patterns in brain activity change as people gradually learn to do something new?"
- "It is much more productive to consider education a socio-cultural endeavour than an exercise in biological or neurological engineering...."
- "Basing" education and instructional strategies on the brain take us back to Cartesian dualisms and the problems associated with them."
These four criticisms are all variations on the same theme: persons are not brains, and education is (of/about/for) persons, not brains.
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