Few graduate teaching programs offer courses in brain structure and function. That is unfortunate, because while neurophysiology and education would appear to be vastly different fields of endeavor, research on the brain has yielded results that can be directly applied in the teaching process (Caine & Caine, 1992).
One suspects most educators would welcome information explaining how to maximize the brain activity of their students to the exclusion of all potential distractions for purposes of creating a unified class focus. Being able to enlist the orientative, emotional and cognitive-associative faculties all at once could produce a virtually Utopian didactic atmosphere.
At face value such a goal might seem unreachable. Most teachers know that even if, like gifted comics, they could "get on a roll" from time to time - with students laughing, listening, participating and cooperating in an all for one, one for all quest for knowledge, such sublime moments could seldom be duplicated, let alone become commonplace. On the other hand, an open-minded glance inside the calcium and protein looking glass known as the human brain suggests this goal might well be attainable.
The dynamic by which the human brain orchestrates its various networks to come up with thought and action remains largely unknown. However enough is known about its component lobes, circuits and interactions to provide a fairly useful template for educators interested in maximizing student performance. To make things clear, the writer will use an arbitrary but reader-friendly term to describe this template...the staircase method. It signifies that in teaching to the brain the educator must climb symbolically a four step cerebral staircase representing the collective, functional minds of his students.
Brain Dynamics
Most theories and research designs on brain function tend to focus on evolutionary development. One of the seminal discoveries in that regard resulted from the work of MacLean (1970) and Luria (1973) who described the human brain as a "triune", ie. a structure with three distinctive evolutionary histories and three separare functions. They proposed that the first and most primitive component is the brain stem, from which sprouts an ascending circuit known as the "RAS" - or reticular activating system. The RAS functions as an alerting, orienting network, making the organism (in this case the student) aware of any changes or increases in the nature or intensity of any given stimulus. This network is activated when novel stimuli are presented, when tonality increases or decreases, or when combinations of new and familiar stimuli occur together. In effect, it is a message-conveyer telling the rest of the brain to be ready for something different, something threatening, something that requires a shift in strategy that just might need to be acted upon. In simpler terms it is a warning, imploring the mind to... "abandon your current state of lazy-habituation."
While the RAS is crucial to learning and survival it is obviously not enough. Being prepared to....do something... induces preparatory arousal but doesn't necessarily prompt a particular behavior. Fortunately the bottom-up organization of the brain seems to be proceed from the general to the specific.
That's where the next step on the staircase comes into play. It is known as the limbic system and it is situated in the middle portion of the brain. it facilitates recognition and emotional/motivational faculties so that global responses such as flight, aggression, sexual and appetiive behaviors and territorial defense reactions can ensue (Kabelik & Weiss 2006), (Derryberry & Tucker, 1992). Since the limbic system provides a greater level of behavioral specificity, and problem solving prowess it represents a higher level on the cerebral staircase. Yet it has limitations. For one thing, it is not very precise. While a high brain-body state of arousal guarantees that action will occur, people don't think, speak or comprehend very well in a high arousal state. Furthermore only in very limited circumstances do the behaviors emanating from this ring-like circuit invite social approval.
That brings us to the third step on the staircase, wherein lies the source of the higher mental faculties - the cerebral cortex. This is where increased behavioral specificity, labels, concepts, associations, abstractions, sound-symbol relationships, reading, writing and math skills are learned and consolidated. (Hasselmo, Anderson et al, 1992)
All things being equal one might presume education should target the cerebral cortex. Another presumption might led one to rule out the limbic system, especially since the typical teaching plan will (hopefully) not include lessons on fight, flight, eating, sex or territorial defense. Meanwhile targeting the RAS might seem unnecessary. Students know why they're in school. They are in the same building every day, going over the same general curriculum with the same group of teachers. Thus, the primarily cortical emphasis employed in most traditional classrooms would at face value, seem appropriate.
If the three brains functioned separately a cortical focus would be sufficient. It turns out they do not. While they might have emerged in different evolutionary epochs and to address different (pre-conversion) environmental circumstances their current pathways are highly integrated, reciprocal and inter-communicative (Ardila & Bernal, 2007). For example the RAS is modified by recognition and associative messages descending down from the limbic and cortical areas. Meanwhile the cortex modulates activity in the limbic system so that the "oomph" provided by its motivational circuits can be applied to language and cognition (Day 1968).
The holistic nature of the brain as typified by network integration implies a theory of learning which will be referred to here as brain swamping. The theory holds that the more brain circuits involved, the better will be the learner's motivation, perception, recognition and participation. More to the point, it seems within the realm of possibility that an effective teaching method can be derived from "brain swamp" theory.
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