Brain rules

Image: Tag Galaxy Thanks to people like Dan Gilbert and John Medina who are sharing their knowledge on the internet, teachers now have ready access to information about how the brain works. Dr. John Medina is a molecular biologist who has been exploring the practical uses of how the 12 rules can give us some solid insight into how the brain works. This has to have implications for the Personal and Social Capability in all its elements. Male and female brains are different, sleep does affect how we learn. Exercise improves cognition and we don’t pay attention to the boring things in life. The 12 brain rules are listed on Dr John Medina’s site Brain Rules and each one is examined separately if you click on the links in the left sidebar. If you go to the bottom of the right sidebar to FROM THE BOOK and click on the rules (posters) it will download the pdf version for you. I have done that because I plan to work on them. There are also some good YouTube videos of this material.

What makes us happy?

Three out of four ain’t bad! Dan Gilbert’s talk on happiness covers three of the four elements for the Personal and Social Capability: self-awareness, self-management and social management. His 20 minute talk which you can find on TED as well under the What makes us happy? playlist is both information packed and thought-provoking. He is an engaging speaker and so it is not difficult to absorb what he has to say . Dan Gilbert is the Professor of Psychology at Harvard and so what he has to say offers plenty of examples of experiments, physiological information about the brain and then the highlights well the problems we have in synthesising happiness and how our belief that choice is the answer – is not the answer at all. That we do not understand happiness very well is made clear and so all of what he offers in this talk has classroom implications for teachers and how they manage their students. It will also influence the tasks we design for the Personal and Social Capability. Well worth the listen and what ought to bring some good exchanges of ideas afterwards.