Brain change

Just as the ability to see within bones and cells changed the process of disease diagnosis and treatment in a medical setting, so also the ability to look into the brain should change the way that learning diagnosis and treatment in a school setting is conducted.  Bringing this science to the art of teaching ought to transform our learning spaces, our learning practices, and our results or learning output.  

While all change takes time, educational change seems to be one of the slowest to effect, in part due to the fact that every teacher and administrator has been a student and carries with him or her a mental model of what teaching and learning looks like.  The brain of each of us has changed along the way to becoming a school leader, and the new ideas that brain science brings may conflict with that prior knowledge, making it very difficult to assimilate new ideas and practices into old schema.

However, knowing now what we do about the brain's capacity for change, need for novelty, and interconnected processes, the potential for major improvements in learning are monumental, if adult learning conditions are able to be structured to affirm brain-friendly ways of knowing.  Again, however, educators may have a view of development of professional skills that involves passive taking in of information rather than active, job-embedded observation, action research, risk-taking, and sharing of results--both good and less-than-good--with a larger community.  Mental models are strong constructs, and many times, a traditional model of education is affirmed by the broader school community, again because of the model we carry in our heads that determines what school should look like.

New models exist, yet local factors may make it difficult to assimilate the results of these schools into existing schema.  So many variables are part of the term "school community" (e.g. student demographics, experience of faculty, student support, school culture and climate, availability of resources, language differences) that it can be difficult to understand how one school's successes can be replicated in another setting.  90/90/90 schools are those that have had phenomenal success not despite mitigating factors of poverty and traditional underachievement, but because of a belief that diversity is desirable, because of a will to adopt changes to capitalize on strengths, and because of a focus on results.  

Working backwards from results to classroom activities is a process that is guiding the improvement of schools in Michigan. It has the potential to do great good, in the long run.  In the short run, it is another of the many tasks that fill the inbox of busy school administrators.  I have confidence that schools will improve, that the process will take time, that the stories of dramatic turnarounds will inspire others to let go of past practices, and that student results will drive classroom instruction, bringing a whole new mental model of school to those young people who aspire to become school leaders some day.