More brain rules

The second chapter of Medina's book, "Brain Rules," speaks directly to the current debate in education over whether it is more important to emphasize basic skills and knowledge, or the development of higher-order thinking skills.

The answer, of course, is not either/or, it's both. Students have to develop basic skills along with a data-base of essential information - and they have to develop the capacity to use that information in useful and creative ways.

Millions of years of evolution have developed in humans a huge capacity for improvisation – for "thinking on our feet". Our very survival as a species depended on it; in fact, our increased brain capacity, compared with other mammals, has more than compensated for a relative lack of speed and strength (and for the fact that humans have a very extended, vulnerable, childhood during which our brains continue to grow and develop.) 

It is also worth noting that for the first time in history, there is more information available than the human brain has the ability to store, so it is becoming increasingly important that we learn how to access the information that is out there.

Any learning environment that develops only the database of basic knowledge, or only our improvisatory instincts, ignores half of human ability and will fail to develop children to their full potential. As the Partnership for 21st Century Skills takes pains to say: we have to figure out how to merge the traditional "three Rs" with the "four Cs" of creativity, communication, collaboration, and critical-thinking.

Another advantage of increased brain size is that it appears to have given humans a unique capacity for symbolic reasoning – which, in turn, has enhanced our ability to communicate with others, and thus to collaborate on common goals.

In evolutionary terms, there are two ways to defeat a potential predator: 1) become bigger, faster or stronger, or 2) develop cooperative arrangements with others to essentially the same effect.

93% of communication is non-verbal – and, it should be noted, not easily tested – but the ability to interpret non-verbal cues is essential to understanding the motivations of others and to the forming of  useful partnerships.

Collaboration has been a big part of how we’ve survived so far, and will be a big part of how we survive in the future. We had better make sure that our children learn how to do that.