A Paediatric Neurologist Speaks
Andrew Curran MB BCh BaO MRCPaedsI MRCPaedsUK MRCPCH DipCH DRCOG is a Research Fellow in Paediatric Neurology at Alder Hay Children's Hospital in Liverpool. He is also committed to helping schools benefit from the latest insights into the workings of the human brain to help them make a difference for children of all ages.
We asked Andrew to put together a few words exclusively for the Independent Thinking Ltd website.
What's more, you can e-mail him any general queries and questions you may have about the learning (or reluctant to learn) brain and he will do his best to answer you. He cannot, of course, go into details about specific cases and when in doubt you should always consult the appropriate channels. But to put that general question that you always wanted to know the answer to but were afraid to ask simply click here and we will do our best.
What's more we will aim to compile these questions as part of a book Andrew is working on with Ian Gilbert.
Watch this space!
“I am not a school teacher and have no right to try and tell you how to do your jobs. What I am is a paediatric neurologist who has spent (and continues to spend) a great deal of my time studying the brain and how it works. Modern science (whilst still a dead duck compared to the wonder that is nature) has now produced enough hard evidence to allow us to start on the long path of developing clear pictures as to how and especially why people learn. Strangely enough, it all comes down to neurochemicals, those little chemicals in the brain that dictate our every waking thought and feeling and which, if turned on in the right way, can significantly enhance our ability to learn.
They are very powerful little chemicals. So small that even the most powerful microscope in the world cannot see them, yet as they buzz back and forth between our nerve cells, they achieve the most miraculous things. They can make a cell so excited that it dies (not very useful). They can make a cell so inhibited that it sits in suspended animation for days or weeks (also not very useful). Most importantly, they can stimulate the necessary processes within the cell to make it grow a brand new connection to another cell.
And that is probably the most useful thing in the world, because that is learning.
Everything you are, everything you feel and everything you think is because nerve cells in your brain have grown connections to other nerve cells to form a pattern of firing that is hard-wired into you. Every time that pattern fires, you will remember that feeling, relive that moment, recall that fact, re-experience that taste.
When it comes right down to it, that is what you as teachers are trying to achieve in the classroom. You are trying to get the right chemicals into the right place at the right time so that each individual child in front of you joins up some more nerve cells and learns what you are trying to teach.
What are these chemicals? How can we help the child to get all this right? Numerous approaches have been (and are being) tried. In the old days it was threat, violence, terror. Very bad at producing the right mix of chemicals those things. In fact, modern science can tell us that they were actually very good at switching off the conscious mind and pushing memory into unconscious processes. Nowadays, teaching is much more to do with getting children involved. Multi-sensory learning, multiple intelligence motivation, small group work, circle time, the list is long and growing longer. The key to all these approaches is the neurochemistry they switch on. Turn on the right chemistry in the right amounts in the right places and learning will occur.
And strangely, after all the money that has been spent, and all the vast laboratories that have been built, what it all comes down to had been worked out by the old village wise woman thousands of years ago – the most powerful way to get any child to learn is to make them feel understood as an individual, to thus build their self esteem and hence their confidence. And if they are in a situation where their self esteem is good and they feel confident, they will feel engaged. It is that feeling of engagement – a relaxed, focused attention on someone with whom you feel safe, that is the most powerful aid to learning yet to be identified.
Focused attention in a relaxed but alert individual who feels a sense of reward or expected reward releases a chemical mix in the learning areas of the brain that wire together nerve cells into repeated patterns of firing. Those patterns of firing represent knowledge and the more often the child is exposed to that type of learning environment, the more positive their experience of school will become and the more they will learn.
For me my continuing journey through the myriad mazes of scientific fact remains fascinating. Every new paper offers the chance to answer another question. It is to try and share some of that enthusiasm that I have become involved with Independent Thinking and I hope that I will soon get the opportunity to present some of my fascination to you.”
To go to Andrew Curran's profile please click here.