If young people are to be equipped effectively to meet the challenges of the 21st century it is surely prudent to seek out the very best understandings from current scientific research into the nature of how humans learn before considering further reform of the current system.

This article by John Abbott and Terence Ryan appeared in the Spring, 1999 issue of Education Canada.

If young people are to be equipped effectively to meet the challenges of the 21st century it is surely prudent to seek out the very best understandings from current scientific research into the nature of how humans learn before considering further reform of the current system.

This article by John Abbott and Terence Ryan appeared in the Spring, 1999 issue of Education Canada.

Sue Gerhardt considers how the earliest relationship shapes the baby’s nervous system, with lasting consequences, and how our adult life is influenced by infancy despite our inability to remember babyhood. The way that we respond to stress, in particular, depends on how our brains are set up to deal with it in early life. Gerhardt shows how the development of the brain can affect future emotional well being, and goes on to look at specific early ‘pathways’ that can lead to conditions such as anorexia, addiction, and anti-social behavior. Early experience leaves its mark, not only in our degree of confidence in other people, but also in the structure and functioning of the brain.

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At each stage of development, the brain’s ability to gain new skills and process information is refined. As a leading researcher at the University of California at Berkeley, Marion Diamond has been a pioneer in this field of research. Now, Diamond and award-winning science writer Janet Hopson present a comprehensive enrichment program designed to help parents prepare their children for a lifetime of learning.

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In this revolutionary look at the brain, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Norman Doidge, M.D., provides an introduction to both the brilliant scientists championing neuroplasticity and the people whose lives they’ve transformed. From stroke patients learning to speak again to the remarkable case of a woman born with half a brain that rewired itself to work as a whole, The Brain That Changes Itself will permanently alter the way we look at our brains, human nature, and human potential.

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When do infants begin to learn? How do experts learn and how is this different from non-experts? What can teachers and schools do—with curricula, classroom settings, and teaching methods—to help children learn most effectively?

This book offers exciting new research about the mind and the brain that provides answers to these and other questions. New evidence from many branches of science has significantly added to our understanding of what it means to know, from the neural processes that occur during learning to the influence of culture on what people see and absorb.

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