Ask Me about Neural Education
In the 80s it was common-place for me to wake up on Saturday morning to the sounds of band saws and sanders coming from the garage. You see, I had a cabinet maker for a parent. You name it. This person could make it: baby cribs, kitchen cabinets, hope chests, furniture.
My mother was an absolute woodworking talent with a heart of gold. Her love language was acts of kindness, and woodworking allowed her to share her skills and provide people with necessary items for their homes. Everyone loved it when she came in with her latest creations.
My mom may have been talented as an adult, but she was not a showcase student in her multitude of schools during her K-12 years. My mom grew up in foster care from the time that she was 5. At that time, foster care families only kept children for six months. They didn’t want the children or the families to become attached. Little or no social attachment was the norm for foster children at that time.
My mom was almost a drop out statistic. She did not fit the social norms of the school. Luckily, my mom’s older brother married an amazing woman who green-housed her and helped her graduate. My aunt’s family became the most influential teachers in my mom’s life, and they would have a significant impact on her professional trajectory. They taught my mother their family trade and invited her to work at their cabinet shop. My mom had finally found her family, and she was able to shed her label of being a “bad” student.
I have been teaching for 19 years. I was a compliant teacher for 15 of those years, and I followed the social norms. I was diligent about getting the “bad” kids out of the classroom so that the “good” kids could learn. I followed the punitive and progressive practices as detailed in the student handbook. It never felt right. I would often think of my mother, who had the label of “bad” student in a system that didn’t make exceptions for trauma or unfortunate circumstance.
When I met cognitive learning scientist Dr. Kieran O’Mahony in 2015 - my lens shifted. As an educator, I could support my students better by developing a cognitivist lens that contrasted the current behaviorist model. Instead of labeling students as “good” or “bad”, I studied and implemented strategies that integrated the complexity of human behavior and learning processes. Scientists like Judy Willis, Bruce Perry, W. Thomas Boyce, Marian Diamond, George Miller, and Donald Hebb influenced how I connected neuroscience with teaching and learning. I was using my neural lens to prepare students to self-regulate, navigate issues, and think critically in our 21st-century world. I noticed that student engagement went up and behavior issues went down when I addressed the needs of the brain over determining the consequence of the behavior.
Education has had a “Titanic Ship” mentality. We are all on the same boat. We are all aware that the ship is going to sink, but we continue to re-arrange the deck chairs to “fix the system.” To move the boat takes a large-scale collective effort or a single captain. Since we are all housed in individual cabins on the ship, collaboration and change agency is difficult. So, we wait for our captain to choose the course. In 2001, No Child Left Behind Legislation set the course. This course was disappointing for many of our youth. Specifically, our most vulnerable and marginalized youth and those who do not conform to compliance models of education and scripted curriculum. Another consequence of NCLB was an increasingly problematic teacher shortage.[i] Inspiration, creativity, and agency by both educators and students were replaced with mandated curricula, common core, and authoritarian testing schedules that label and stratify students, teachers, districts, and states.[ii] Neural Educators are getting off the titanic and into kayaks. They are flexible and able to do what is best for their students. When the educators need support, they can raft up with other Neural Educators to co-create solutions, collaborate, and share.
At Neural Education, our intent is not to disrupt - but to support. We are supporting students, parents, and educators. Success in educational entrepreneurship requires partnering, not disruption. Schools are skeptical of education fads and scripted products that promise improved outcomes. What these scripts do not take into account are free will and human experience.
With a neural lens and a coalition of like-minded educators, I believe that we can shift our system from a scripted, punitive model to a human potential model. I am confident that Washington State will listen to the coalition of educators who are connecting neuroscience with teaching and learning. We are changing the educational and professional trajectories of our most vulnerable youth! One study showed minority and special education students were disproportionately suspended. Of those suspended in 9th grade, one suspension doubled the student’s odds of dropping out of high school.[iii] Another study in Philadelphia showed that a high school dropout imposes a lifetime cost of $319,000 - due to their smaller tax payments, higher use of government supports, and incarceration costs. Whereas a high school graduate (without any college education) has a lifetime monetary contribution of $261,000.[iv] The point is – we either pay now in supporting our youth, co-creating individualized solutions and co-regulating with students so they can reach their human potential. Or we pay later in taxes to support the students who were labeled as the “bad student” and pushed out of the behaviorist, punitive model into other pathways like homelessness or the school to prison pipeline.
Neural Education became a passion project for us based on our own experiences. Little did we know it would be so personal for so many other educators, too. The social impact that I see rippling from the Neural Education Summer Institutes and professional development is hitting a tipping point. Professional development and mentoring support systems that connect neuroscience with teaching and learning are essential for educators in our 21st-century schools. Dysregulation, hypervigilance, and environmental sensitivities impact our students and educators. Translating the neuroscience of learning, memory, and the impact of toxic stress on the brain into the classroom gives teachers and students agency over learning, promotes emotional regulation, and increases the success of both the teacher and the student.
Join us! #neuraled #raftingup #knowbetterdobetter
www.neuraleducation.org
[i] McGuinn, P. (2016). From no child left behind to the every student succeeds act: Federalism and the education legacy of the obama administration. Publius, 46(3), 392-415. doi:10.1093/publius/pjw014
[ii] Aronica, L., & Robinson, K. (2016). Creative schools. New York: Penguin Random House.
[iii] Balfanz, R., Byrnes, V., & Fox, J. (2013). Sent home and put off-track: The antecedents, disproportionalities, and consequences of being suspended in the ninth grade. Journal of Applied Research on Children, 5(2) Retrieved from https://www.openaire.eu/search/publication?articleId=od_______325::7b49211529be527d6fc62441fcd43e05
[iv] Baylis, E., Burgos, T., Burton, T., Davis, M., Gladney, R., Hang, L., . . . Williams, B. (2011). Pushed out: Youth voices on the dropout crisis in philadelphia Retrieved from https://dignityinschools.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Pushed-Out-Youth-Voices-on-the-Droupout-Crisis-in-Philadelphia-2011.pdf
