Trends in Neuroscience and Education aims to bridge the gap between our increasing basic cognitive and neuroscience understanding
of learning and the application of this knowledge in educational settings. It provides a forum for
original translational research
on using systems neuroscience findings to improve educational outcome, as well as for
reviews on basic and applied research
as relevant to education, project reports, best practice examples, and opinions regarding
evidence based educational policies
and related subjects.
Just as 200 years ago, medicine was little more than a mixture of bits of knowledge, fads and plain quackery
without a basic grounding in a scientific understanding of the body, and just as in the middle of the nineteenth century, Hermann von
Helmholtz, Ernst Wilhelm von Brücke, Emil Du Bois-Reymond and a few others got together and drew up a scheme for what medicine should
be (i.e., applied natural science), we believe that this can be taken as a model for what should happen in the field of education. In
many countries, education is merely the field of ideology, even though we know that how children learn is not a question of left or right
political orientation.
Contrary to the skeptics (who claim that "brain science […] is not ready to relate neuronal processes
to classroom outcomes", Cf. Hirsh-Pasek K, Bruer JT, 2007), we believe that we know today more about the neuroscience of learning than
Helmholtz et al. back then knew about the body. In fact, from our perspective very little was known, as cellular pathology, microbiology
and pharmacology hardly existed as domains of scientific investigation, let alone as tools for physicians. But the
very idea
- medicine is applied science - caught on and led to unprecedented and dramatic improvements in medicine.
In our view, this is
precisely what we must do in order to make progress in education. "You claim all learning is taking place in the brain. If that's so,
which type of preschool is most effective?" - From a medical perspective, it is obvious that a neuroscientist cannot answer such questions
occasionally posed by educators or educational policy makers. But it is just as clear that the answers will come from research informed
by developmental cognitive neuroscience. Trends in Neuroscience and Education will foster activities on the translational research that
is needed.
Neuroscience is to education what biology is to medicine and physics is to architecture. Biochemistry is not enough to
cure a patient, and physics is not enough to build a bridge. But you cannot perform great work, neither in medicine nor in architecture,
against the laws of physics or biology. And in fact, they will inform you about many constraints and rule out a great many of projects
right from the start as failures.
Editors: Contact the Editor
Manfred Spitzer
Zrinka Sosic-Vasic
