The Invariant Gardener

The first paragraph is a beautiful piece of propaganda for neuroscience :

 

Recent advances in the neuroscience of emotions are high­lighting connections between cognitive and emotional func­tions that have the potential to revolutionize our understanding of learning in the context of schools. (p.3)

 

Nothing explains such a statement, so this paragraph boils down to a mere annoucement of what is intended :

highlighting new connections between emotional, cognitive, and social func­tioning (p.3)

 

We may infer that a revolution is awaiting for these « new connections » between psychological dimensions. I’m absolutely thrilled at this idea of learning what these new connections are indeed. Aren’t you ?

But we will have to wait a little

The second paragraph start with an beautiful piece of self-conceit:

Modern biology reveals humans to be fundamentally emo­tional and social creatures. (p.3)

 

The interesting word here is « reveals ». As if the veil of ignorance was still concealing that truth. Obviously, the authors have a rough and self-centered conception of the history of ideas. Let us remind that in 1756 Hume already stated that  : « Reason is, and ought to be, the slave of passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them. »

I would suggest that almost all what is at stake in this article is probably solved by this simple assertion. We will come back to that later.

 

Concerning the fact that humans are social creatures, of course no revelation occured because of modern biology — unless Aristotle is considered as one of its representative.

But never mind with this illegitimate proudness.

Let’s come to the key argument of this paragraph :

Any com­petent teacher recognizes that emotions and feelings affect stu­dents ’ performance and learning, as does the state of the body, such as how well students have slept and eaten or whether they are feeling sick or well. We contend, however, that the relationship between learning, emotion and body state runs much deeper than many educators realize and is interwoven with the notion of learning itself. (p.3)

 

Are you exited when reading this ? Lucky you. It appears to me as one more contention without any substance. We’ll still have to wait.

 

So what about the next big statement ? :

It is not that emotions rule our cognition, nor that rational thought does not exist. It is, rather, that the original purpose for which our brains evolved was to manage our physiology, to optimize our survival, and to allow us to flourish. (p.3)

 

Not only the authors casually oppose Hume’s statement, they dogmaticly assert trivial statements concerning brain’s functions that give us no light on what is at stake.

 

So, we are still waiting for the first sound argumentation. I hope that you are not too disappointed.

It appears that propaganda is not the privilege of economics or politics. It is obviously an important tool in the factory of science.

A colleague of mine recently handed me two articles dealing with neurosciences and education. After their takeover bid attempt of psychology, neurosciences are coveting education as a possible conquest for their empire.

Sadly enough, less and less people seems able to judge this discourse for what it is: a pure rhetoric with no serious argument

In an attempt to help teachers, educators and any person interested by the field of education staying away of what appears to me as useless conceptions, in what follows I will indulge in the activity which always gives me tremendous satisfactions : criticism.

In a serie of posts, I intend to read very closely these two recent articles :

1) “We Feel, Therefore We Learn: The Relevance of Affective and Social Neuroscience to Education” by Mary Helen Immordino-Yang and Antonio Damasio.
2) How Educational Theories Can Use Neuroscientific Data by Daniel T. Willingham and John W. Lloyd  

I don’t have read them yet. So it is supposed to be a kind of challenge. My only conviction is that, anyhow, I will learn something even if I still don’t know what.

My starting point is the fact that in my theory and pratice of psychology I have simply no use of neuroscience. Psychology is an autonomous science. I wouldn’t say so of education science but I am adamant that neurosciences won’t help in the least because my mind of school psychologist is complety devoid of neuroscientific concepts which would be of practical value when operating in the psychological realm.

Of course, this journey inside of the neuroscientific rhetoric will be an excellent opportunity to draw a global perspective of my synthetic conception of psychology

I hope you will have fun as much as I surely will.