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Older Paradigms of ‘Educational Foundations ’

Such was the sense of certainty that accompanied earlier research insights into educational foundations that its so-called ‘empirical findings ’ became virtual canons that were beyond critique, much less refutation. This was most clearly the case in educational psychology wherein the findings of Piaget, Kohlberg, Erikson, Skinner and others provided the indisputable foundations for understanding the dynamics of teaching and therefore the goals of teacher education. In fact, in retrospect, their findings were arguably more linear, deterministic and based on more limited evidence than was often acknowledged. As such, it might be argued that they actually had a constraining effect on teaching and teacher education and contributed to some of the pessimism about the role of the teacher that Carnegie alleged had led to the persistent problem around student failure. Like so much of the social science paradigm that stemmed from the heyday of nineteenth century science, these theories might well have failed to inform teaching in the way that it requires (Jörg et al. 2007 ; Lovat 2008 ).

So, what was the problem with these older foundations of thought? Among a number of problems is that many of them were expressed as linear stage development theories, be it of maturation, socialization, motivation or learning itself. Especially in educational psychology, these were the theories that dominated much of the thinking that lay behind the practicalities of teaching and therefore the curriculum of teacher education. Interestingly, in spite of serious counter-research by the likes of Gilligan (1982) , Hoffman (2000) and Zahn-Waxler et al. (1979) , Freudian, Piagetian and Kohlbergian research seems often to have been presented in fairly uncritical fashion as offering the firmest and most empirically sound bases for thinking about intellectual development.

The reason for this is that arguably these latter ‘giants’ of psychosocial understanding relied heavily on a combination of observation and rationalistic analysis. Their slightly lesser known critics, on the other hand, rested much of their critique on recourse to the affective. Gilligan, for instance, saw Kohlberg’s thesis of moral development as being biased in favour of the male disposition towards rules and regulations as holding sway over considerations of caring and relationships, considerations that Gilligan thought were more germane to women. In similar vein, Hoffman regarded morality as being principally emotionally rather than cognitively driven, so calling into question classical Freudian theory, and Zahn-Waxler and co. identified pro-social behaviour in children much earlier than proposed by Piaget because they concentrated on expressions of care and empathy, rather than the demonstrations of cognitive advance that lay at the centre of Piagetian theory .

The above critiques of classical developmental theory were early warning signs of the revolutionary insights about human functioning being uncovered by the new neurosciences. We will return to examine them in greater detail but, for now, suffice it to say that they are upsetting established notions that human development can be ascertained and understood purely with reference to the cognitive domain and rationalistic assumptions. The role of affect is being seen increasingly as more than an adjunct or added extra in explaining all manner of human development. It is being seen as an indispensable component of all that we have understood by the cognitive and rational. ‘Cognition and affect ’ is a nexus and this insight has profound implications for teaching and school education.

It is worth noting, as an aside, that the narrow instrumentalism to be found in the classical cognitive theories was matched by similar paradigms of thought in socialization theories . Psychology that led to disjoined cognition theory and sociology that led to deterministic theory of socialization became the bedfellows of the foundations of teaching and teacher education. The result was an inevitable pessimism about the capacity of teaching and schooling to impact on an individual’s learning potential, once impaired cognition and (almost inevitably) the allied disadvantages wrought by heritage and socio-economic environment had been demonstrated.

When one peruses the average sociology text designed to support the foundations of teaching and teacher education, one is struck by the dominance of paradigms of thought that juxtapose deterministic and conflict (or neo-Marxist ) theoretical positions, perhaps softened by some Weberian moderation around the thinking of symbolic interactionism . These courses tend to give the impression that educational sociology is a fairly remote discipline that has little power other than to analyse and speculate about social phenomena as they pertain to schools, finally giving the impression that the real choices are either to become reconciled to the fact that the students in one’s care as a teacher will be determined by forces beyond their own or the teacher’s control, or else to form them into bands of neo-Marxist rebels who will forge their own proletarian revolution. Neither of these options really offer future teachers any hope that they will be able to make a real difference to the lives of their students, least of all for those who need intervention most because of their heritage, disadvantage or disability. While updated a little, much of the determinism of Talcott Parsons (Parsons and Bales 1956) (‘Families are the factories of life’) and Christopher Jencks (Jencks 1972) (‘What comes out of the school is what went in’) seems still to be essentially in place, with the only alternative for a teacher who wants to make a difference being in resistance if not demolition of the hegemony.

Newer Paradigms of Educational Foundations

As we have seen, it was essentially renewed thinking about the foundations of teaching and teacher education that impelled some of the revolutionary thought behind the Carnegie Report (Carnegie Corporation 1996) , and some of this thinking came from the emerging neurosciences (Bruer 1999 ). The new neurosciences represent a set of research findings concerned with the brain, its constitution and functioning, and hence a range of related issues around cognition, thinking and learning. In turn, the new neurosciences, in contrast with many of their older forebears, move to establish contingent relationships between cognition, affect and sociality. In other words, the view that development was driven principally by cognition has yielded to the realization that cognitive, emotional and social development are in a synergistic relationship, with each contributing to the other.

As an example, Antonio Damasio’s (Damasio 1996, 1999, 2003 ; Immordino-Yang and Damasio 2007 ) main interest is in the neurobiology of the mind, especially concerning those systems that underpin consciousness, memory and emotion. His work is associated with the notion of the cognition/affect/sociality nexus, a way of conceiving of emotion, feelings and social competence as not being separate so much as inherently part of all rational processes. The scientific rigour of his experimental work, together with the strength of his findings and those of others (Rose and Strangman 2007 ), is causing educationists to re-think many of their assumptions about a range of developmental issues, including that of learning itself. After all, if Damasio is correct, then those dominant conceptions of thinking that regard development as linear, rational and progressive, regardless of emotional and social development are turned on their heads:

Modern biology reveals humans to be fundamentally emotional and social creatures. And yet those of us in the field of education often fail to consider that the high-level cognitive skills taught in schools, including reasoning, decision making, and processes related to language, reading, and mathematics, do not function as rational, disembodied systems, somehow influenced by but detached from emotion and the body. (Immordino-Yang and Damasio 2007 , p. 3)

Furthermore, the taxonomic notion that cognitive learning outcomes can somehow be separated from affective ones comes to be seen as nonsense. For example, the idea that literacy training can be achieved through mastery instruction and testing, without reference to the physical and emotional ambience within which the learning is occurring nor moreover to the levels of confidence and self-esteem of the learner, appears to be naïve in the extreme. Above all, Damasio’s work implies a refutation of the pessimism that the old foundations unwittingly imposed on the potential of teaching to break through barriers of disadvantage. Damasio’s work implies optimism that, if teaching is directed to all the developmental measures, including emotion and sociality, rather than just the purely cognitive measures, then the potential to engage the interests and attention of those not normally engaged is enhanced. After all, it is the many issues of emotionality and sociality related to heritage, disadvantage and disability that serve to block the learning interest of many students in school, rather than merely a raw and separated cognitive ability or the lack thereof. Teaching that is sensitive to and addresses these realities has been shown to be more effective in drawing in such a clientele as well as making learning more engaging for all. These claims will be confirmed with evidence below.

Another theorist whose work impinges on the new foundations is Daniel Goleman (Goleman 1995, 2001, 2006) , a trained cognitive theorist who has become associated most with notions of social and emotional intelligence, and hence social and emotional learning. Goleman has demonstrated in his work that social intelligence (SQ ) and emotional intelligence (EQ ) are at least as vital to sound cognition as the traditional notion of intelligence quotient (IQ). Indeed, the evidence would suggest that they constitute the key to the demonstration of effects normally associated with IQ. The implications of these findings for teaching and teacher education is that IQ is not an isolated factor nor, as previously assumed, is it fixed, free-standing and determinative of student achievement. IQ in fact denotes a highly contextualized phenomenon, at least in part dependent on other aspects affecting one’s current state of wellbeing of body, mind, emotion and sociality. As such, the effects normally associated with IQ are not merely the expressions of genetic and environmental advantage or disadvantage, and so unable to be impacted on by teaching intervention. Student potential and school achievement can be affected and impelled by well-informed and well-constructed teaching that addresses not only cognitive but also social and emotional development.

Like Goleman, Robert Sternberg (Sternberg 2007) is a psychologist and, in his case, psycho-metrician. Like Goleman, Sternberg’s training would naturally have led to acceptance of the more linear cognitive notions of thinking identified above. Sternberg however is also a convert to seeing cognition as part of a broader mix of human factors. Sternberg refers to different forms of intelligence, namely, analytic, synthetic and practical, involving a fuller range of human capabilities than is understood by the more limited and rationalistic notions of intelligence. He was not only critical of the traditional IQ test but actually devised a more sophisticated intelligence test based on a broader theory of intelligences. Damasio, Goleman and Sternberg would seem to owe much to the foundational thought of Howard Gardner (Gardner 1983) around multiple intelligences.

Martin Seligman (Seligman 2004) , also a psychologist, is one who has been especially critical of the older paradigms of thought in his own discipline. Known best for his work on positive psychology, he is heavily critical of traditional forms of psychology for their emphasis on the negative, the helpless and the pessimistic, so impelling thinking that leads to depression and feelings of hopelessness. For him, psychology must become more conscious of and adept at effecting positive thinking in order to engender feelings of optimism and control. In recent times, he has done much work in applying his theory of positive psychology to schools and education where he clearly sees the negative impact of earlier foundational thinking.

Increasingly it is being recognized that the phenomena of teaching and learning cannot be described by disciplines focussing on discrete areas such as cognition, emotion and culture (e.g. Rosiek and Beghetto 2009 ). The earlier expectations of cognitive psychology that cognitive functioning could be explained by partitioning off other influences is described by Gardner (1985/1987) as follows:

The third feature of cognitive science is the deliberate decision to de-emphasize certain factors which may be important for cognitive functioning, but whose inclusion at this point would unnecessarily complicate the cognitive-scientific enterprise. These factors include the influence of affective factors or emotions, the contribution of historical and cultural factors, and the role of the background context in which particular actions or thoughts occur. (p. 6)

The attempt to isolate cognition from affective and social factors has proven to be incapable of providing a sufficient explanation of student learning because motivation and engagement have been observed to be key indicators of student cognitive engagement in learning (Clement 2010b ). The work of educational psychologists like Ainley (2006, 2007) challenges notions that cognition, affect and sociality can be considered as discrete phenomena in education because affective states such as ‘enjoyment’ and ‘interest’ have been identified as ‘key variables ’ in motivation. Positive emotions have the propensity to focus energy towards the learning task, thereby constituting a vital state for cognitive engagement . This synergy of cognitive and non-cognitive constituents of learning has also been identified by others in the field of educational psychology. Monica Boekaerts (Boekaerts 1993) was among the first to draw attention to the fact that student wellbeing influenced learning through students’ perceptions of their personal efficacy, their ability to self-manage their emotions and the level of social support provided by teachers and peers. Additionally, Richard Ryan (Ryan 2007) observed that there is an increasing recognition of the salience of motivation in light of the current interest in cultural and biological influences on behaviour and cognition. In fact, Ryan comments that cognitive interventions not addressing emotion and motivation have limited efficacy. Furthermore, Elizabeth Linnenbrink (Linnenbrink 2006) notes that a new aspect of the current research in the interaction of cognition, emotion and motivation is an interest in how affect enhances the ways that students and teachers experience learning in educational settings. This increasing recognition of the impact of emotion and motivation on cognitive performance from psychological and sociological perspectives (e.g. Schutz and Pekrun 2007 ; Schutz and Zembylas 2009 ; Zembylas 2005 ) has been supported by evidence from the neurosciences.

Neuroscience and the Educational Foundations

With the declaration of ‘The Decade of the Brain’ by the US Congress in the 1990s, the visibility of neuroscience increased appreciably (Jones and Mendell 1999 ), and attempts were made to apply this new knowledge to education. In general, these earlier attempts at neuroscience have now been relegated to the realm of ‘neuromyths ’ because of misinterpretations of the findings from the neurosciences (e.g. Bruer 1999 ; Geake 2008 ; Goswami 2006 ; Purdy 2008 ; Purdy and Morrison 2009 ). The first decade of the twenty-first century, however, has witnessed a more disciplined approach to the application of neuroscience to educational practice (see Clement 2010a). A new level of collaboration between neuroscientists and educators has resulted in neuroscientists themselves and/or educators conversant with neuroscience, directly contributing findings from the neurosciences that are applicable to educational practice (e.g. Blakemore and Frith 2005 ; Goswami 2006, 2008 ; Jossey-Bass Inc. 2008 ; Sousa 2010 ; Willis 2006 ). Goswami (2008) argues that the findings of neuroscience are important for education because neuroscience “enables a principled understanding of the mechanisms of learning and of the basic components of human performance” (p. 396). Additionally, Goswami comments that these findings may support insights already present in teaching practice, while it may challenge others, and provide a more precise and sounder evidence base for education. This collaboration between education and neuroscience is symptomatic of a general movement across the social sciences to incorporate neuroscientific explanations as another level of explanation of social and psychological phenomena (e.g. Barrett 2009 ; Domìnguez Duque et al. 2010 ; Franks 2010 ).

Application of the findings of neuroscience to education requires a conceptual framework that accommodates the integration of data from the biological sciences with those from the sciences. The commonality between neuroscience and the social sciences is the explanation of behaviour, the neurosciences on a biological level beginning with observation of brain activity and the social sciences beginning with the observation of individual and social activity (Howard-Jones 2008 ). Howard-Jones suggests that, when findings from both approaches resonate, there is a greater confidence in the validity of the findings. Similarly, Anderson and Reid (2009) suggest that there are three levels of abstraction and description that are relevant to the dialogue between education and neuroscience, namely, biological, cognitive and behavioural. Neuroscience currently straddles the biological and the cognitive, whereas educational research and practice focus on the cognitive and the behavioural.

Meanwhile, Anderson and Reid (2009) argue that educational interventions which incorporate neuroscientific findings must engage at all three levels of description, that is, the biological, cognitive and behavioural. This implies that the complexities of education and learning cannot be understood by one discipline alone and therefore they need a ‘trans-disciplinary’ approach (Ronstadt and Yellin 2010 ; Samuels 2009 ). Diamond (2007) holds that such collaboration among disciplines is necessary in order to understand the “complexity of human experience ” and the need for collaboration between the “social, cultural, neuroscientific, biological and cognitive sciences.” (p. 154). Goswami (2008) concludes:

Biological, sensory and neurological influences on learning must become equal partners with social, emotional and cultural influences if we are to have a truly effective discipline of education. (p. 397)

The movement towards a trans-disciplinary approach is indicative of a rejection of the singular reductionism that defined the sciences in the previous century and a recognition that uni-faceted notions of learning and intelligence are no longer adequate to account for the complex nature of human experience. As Diamond (2007) and Goswami (2008) imply, one discipline is incapable of accounting for the complexity and diversity of the dynamic and interacting components associated with learning and education. This reflects the breakdown of a singular belief in eliminative reductionism (in this case explaining everything in terms of biology alone) and the movement towards a post-reductionist view of science which recognizes that no particular discipline can satisfactorily describe or explain all facets of a particular phenomenon. Therefore, a plurality of descriptions is needed in order to adequately describe the whole (e.g. Cacioppo et al. 2007 ; Franks 2010 ; Horst 2007 ; Lilienfeld 2007 ). The general picture that emerges from this examination is that it takes many disciplines to be able to interpret what is happening in learning and education, and no one discipline can give an adequate description of what is a multi-dimensional phenomenon .

Four aspects of the findings of the neurosciences have particular pertinence for newer paradigms of educational foundations: neuroplasticity; the genetic-environment interplay; implicit and explicit learning; and, the ambience of the learning environment.

Neuroplasticity

The brain has the capacity and potential to change in response to environmental stimuli or by the activity of the mind (Doige 2008 ). Changes in the neural circuitry are facilitated either by changes at the biochemical level in the proteins of individual neurons or by changes in gene expression as a result of gene–environment interaction (Cicchetti and Blender 2006 ; Hyman and Nestler 1993 ). Contemporary brain-imaging techniques are able to monitor and quantify such changes (Poldrack 2000 ). It is the plasticity of the brain that makes learning and development possible; that is, its malleability in being able to adapt, restructure and modify itself in response to experience (Doige 2008 ; Galván 2010 ). This includes the capacity of the brain to reorganize itself in the case of injury or impairment and to overcome learning problems (Blakemore and Frith 2005 ; Doige 2008 ; Goswami 2008 ; Sousa 2010 ). Willis (2010) points out that the crucial functions of learning are dependent on the capability of the brain to reorganize itself in response to the learning experience:

Neuroplasticity is the ability of neural networks to extend, prune, reorganize, correct or strengthen themselves based on acquiring new information, obtaining corrective feedback, and recognizing associations between new and prior knowledge. (p. 55)

Neuralplasticity involves the making of new interconnections between the neurons in the brain, or the strengthening or weakening of existing ones. In learning, new interconnections are made or existing ones strengthened, but these neuronal pathways can be pruned and eventually discarded if unused (Blakemore and Frith 2005 ; Doige 2008 ). Neuroplasticity is associated with the propensity for ‘lifelong learning’ extending even into late life as new neural connections can be formed in response to stimulus from the environment (Goswami 2008 ); however, plasticity tends to decline with age (Blakemore and Frith 2005 ; Doige 2008 ). Doige (2008) points out that neuralplasticity is paradoxical because on the one hand a person can be flexible and adaptable throughout life while on the other hand the spontaneity and creativity of childhood can be subsumed by routine and rigidity.

A feature of neural plasticity is the ability of the brain to compensate for impaired neural structures, for instance, as in the regaining of lost functions owing to stroke (Blakemore and Frith 2005 ; Goswami 2008) . Cognitive behaviour therapy also illustrates the power of the mind to bring about changes in brain states (Franks 2010 ). Further examples of functional adaptations by the brain in the case of impairment relate to the stimulation of the auditory cortex of persons who are deaf by the activities of lip-reading and signing, and the stimulation of the visual cortex of people who are blind in the reading of Braille (Blakemore and Frith 2005 ). A striking example of the capacity to compensate for impairment is given by Immordino -Yang (2007, 2008) in the case study of two boys who were faced with severe limitations after having one hemisphere of their brain surgically removed. In a supportive family and educational environment, they were able to develop the strengths of their remaining capacities in ways that allowed them to compensate for the social and learning disadvantages associated with the potential liabilities of their condition (cf. Fischer 2009 ; van Geert and Steenbeek 2008 ). As Diamond (2009) points out, a quality learning environment is particularly critical for students suffering brain injury early in life because their developmental outcomes are dependent on a narrower range of environmental inputs.

Genetic-environment Interplay in Learning and Development

Learning and development are interrelated phenomena, are dependent upon their interaction with the environment and are both shaped by that experience (Galván 2010 ). Recent discoveries in the biological and psychological sciences have challenged accepted understandings of human development. Rigid models arising from structuralist conceptions that considered development to be normative and invariant (Dai and Sternberg 2004 ) and driven solely by biology (Wexler 2006 ) have largely yielded to a view that learning and development are contingent on the interaction between characteristics of the learner and the social and physical environment. Notions of genetic determination as being the primary driver of individual or phenotypic development are being questioned by burgeoning research in epigenetics which indicates that genetic expression (individual development) is continually modified by the particular circumstances of an individual’s social and physical environment and not driven by genetic endowment alone (Lickliter 2008, 2009 ; Robinson et al. 2008 ; Zhang and Kourtzi 2010 ). In fact, Kandel (1998 ) goes so far as to say:

The capability of learning is so highly developed in humans that humankind changes more by cultural evolution than by biological evolution. (p. 461; cf. Doige 2008; Lickliter 2008, 2009)

Rather than occurring independent of the environment (a genocentric perspective), research in epigenetics suggests that development takes place through an individual’s interaction with the environment (Lickliter 2009 ). Experience of the environment affects gene expression (which genes are ‘switched on’) and, in turn, the way that the environment is experienced is affected by a person’s genetic make-up (Diamond 2009 ; cf. Fisher 2006 ). This suggests that individual differences in personality and brain functioning are to be understood against the gene–environment interaction (Zhang and Kourtzi 2010 , p. 458). Learning itself produces changes at the epigenetic level: “Learning … produces alteration in gene expression” (Kandel 1998 , p. 460; cf. Zhang and Kourtzi 2010 , p. 452). In fact, long-term memory itself is dependent on gene activation in order for production of a protein that will enable alteration to the structure of the nerve-ending so that it can develop new connections with other neurons (Doige 2008 ; Squire and Kandel 2009 ; Zhang and Kourtzi 2010 ). Thus, development and learning have a significant impact on gene expression, and therefore on human behaviour.

The corollary of this for education, as stated by Fischer and Heikkinen (2010) , is that learning occurs “through acting on the world not merely by thinking about it or hearing about it” (p. 251). This statement has Deweyian, Piagetian and Habermasian overtones (not to mention Aristotelian), but their perspective has been extended through the added insights contributed by the neurosciences into the chemical, metabolic and anatomical impact of learning on brain structure. Knowledge is best facilitated by active participation in a range of experiences, that in turn ‘sculpt ’ the brain by causing changes in ‘brain activity ’ and the interconnections between the neurons; passive experience appears to have a less pronounced effect (Fischer 2009 , pp. 5–6). Learning and development, according to Fischer and colleagues (Fischer 2009 ; Fischer and Heikkinen 2010 ; Rose and Fischer 2009 , p. 408), are dynamic and the pathways of learning are web-like rather than ladder-like, requiring both support and the opportunity to practise the necessary skills. The nature of the support provided by the socio-cultural context helps explain variation in developmental progression. The help and support provided by parents, siblings and teachers, as well as cultural artefacts, assist in the development of expertise in that culture. Learning trajectories in school contexts, according to van Geert and Steenbeek (2008) , result from a dynamic interaction of student self-regulation and motivation, opportunities for practising and extending skills, and support provided by the teacher and the learning environment. Social support is also an element in the development of personal and moral qualities because social conditions, as well as maturation, contribute to the development of self-control (Sokol et al. 2010 ).

According to the proponents of social and emotional learning, competency in the inter and intra-personal skills which are the focus of their programmes is not only an important outcome in its own right, but the acquisition of such skills facilitates academic achievement by “strengthening students ’ preparedness for learning and promoting the development of prosocial skills and behaviour that mediate school performance” (Kress et al. 2004 , p. 72). Elias et al. (2002) argue that schools play an essential role in promoting social and emotional skills, particularly for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, whose life circumstances might not have afforded them with the self-regulation and relational skills necessary for effective learning and participation in the social milieu of the classroom, “Academic and social success should not be the product of good fortune or privileged upbringing” (p. 9).

As reported in Dally (2010) , research on brain functioning employing neuro-imaging techniques provides further support for actively promoting social–emotional competencies for all students and especially for those from dysfunctional home backgrounds. Bechara et al. (2007) describe how decision making is guided by the processing of emotional reactions. Personal and interpersonal situations are often strongly associated with positive or negative emotions, and it is the feelings emanating from these emotions that influence the selection of a particular course of action from an array of possible responses. Children who have been deprived of trusting relationships and secure and nurturing environments may have learned to distrust or fear others and thus the emotions that are triggered in benign interactions may be biased to elicit negative feelings such as anger or aggression. Bechara et al. (2007 , p. 280) describe these distorted neural representations of emotional/feeling states as an “environmental abnormality ” that has been caused by inefficient social learning and that can therefore be ‘unlearned’ if an individual is given exposure to adequate education and practice in intra- and interpersonal skills as well as favourable contingencies arising from more objective decision making.

Learning is described by Goswami (2008) as an ‘incremental process ’ whereby abstracted concepts are derived from direct experience as the brain has capacities to “extract and represent structure that is present in the input even when it is not taught directly.” (p. 390). Moreover, as Goswami states, the aim of learning is the abstraction of explicit concepts that are implicit within direct experience of the world. Although, students are at times capable of initiating such abstractions (Goswami 2008 ), at other times, as Battro (2010) suggests, there needs to be a Socratic-like pedagogical intervention that will alter the students’ ‘focus of attention ’ so they can productively engage in learning (cf. Sætrevik et al. 2006 ). In either case, learning is not a simple assimilation of “common experiences” but an active interpretation grounded in “previous learning and innate neuropsychological strengths ” (Immordino-Yang 2007 , p. 80). There have been claims that the benefits of an enriched environment on accelerating the learning of young children have been over-exaggerated (Blakemore and Frith 2005 ). Nonetheless, evidence indicates that the quality of care and environmental experiences in the early years of life have a longer-term impact on learning and development (e.g. Diamond 2009 ; Fagiolini et al. 2009 ; Lickliter 2008 ; Moulson et al. 2009 ).

Memory and Imitation

Neuroscience has highlighted that there are two aspects to learning, implicit, or unintentional learning, and explicit, or intentional learning. These two aspects of learning are supported by two different capacities of the brain, namely, memory and the functioning of mirror neurons.

Memory, as Squire and Stark (2008) observe, is the means by which learning persists and is made available through time:

Experience can modify the nervous system, and as a result, organisms can learn and remember. Learning is the process by which new information is acquired about the world, and memory is the process by which this information can persist across time. (p. 242)

Squire and Kandel (2009) distinguish between implicit (non-declarative) and explicit (declarative) memory. Explicit or declarative memory (the conscious recall of events or information) is associated with conscious and controlled learning and the committal of what is learned to long-term memory. On the other hand, implicit memory (motor or cognitive habits, perceptual and motor skills, sensitization or conditioning) is associated with reflexive learning and is largely unconscious and automatic and is established through repeated observations of and interactions with others (Kandel 2006 ; Wilson 2009 ). Because implicit learning is less available to introspection, it can be a powerful mode of transmitting attitudes and patterns of behaviour because these are typically adopted and ‘absorbed’ without conscious scrutiny. This facet of learning is given prominence in values education, where teacher modelling of the values serves to reinforce the explicit teaching of them.

Besides being an incremental and inferential process, as described in the previous section, “learning is social”, that is, learning is sensitive to the social and cultural context. Humans have the most prolonged period of dependency of any mammal and are dependent on the construction and maintenance of social networks, ranging from families and groups, to cities, civilizations and cultures, across the life-span (Dunbar and Shultz 2007 ; Zhou and Cacioppo 2010 ). According to Meltzoff et al. (2009) , humans possess three social skills foundational to learning that are rare in other animals: “imitation, shared attention and empathic understanding” (p. 285). Social learning is supported by the mirror neurons in the pre-motor cortex which are said to link perception, cognition and action. These mirror neurons, which are instrumental in imitative learning, assist in the interpretation and understanding of the actions, intent and emotional states of others and thus contribute to the development of empathy (Meltzoff et al. 2009 ; Iacoboni 2008 ; Immordino-Yang 2008 ; Rizzolatti et al. 2001 ). No longer is imitation regarded as the product of associative learning (Meltzoff and Decety 2003), rather, Meltzoff and Moore (1997) claim that it is an exclusively human attribute and the means by which infants learn cultural patterns of behaviour, customs and skills (cf. Meltzoff et al. 2009 ; Iacoboni 2008 ). Although mirror neurons are involved in learning through imitation, it is likely that other neural systems are involved as well, since other primates also have mirror neurons yet do not imitate in the way that humans do (Franks 2010 ; Meltzoff and Decety 2003 ; Iacoboni 2008) .

Imitation is a powerful force in learning and, as Blakemore and Firth (2005) observe, people often find it easier to learn by observation than by the provision of detailed verbal instruction. This has profound implications for teaching and learning:

We are predisposed to imitate those around us. This echoes the belief of many educators that we should not just impart what to know but also demonstrate how to know. The teacher’s values, beliefs and attitude to learning could be as important in the learning process as the material being taught. (p. 163)

Nonetheless, imitation by itself is insufficient for learning. Although imitation has an essential role in the learning of language, dance, singing, acting and sport, creativity and imagination are required as well. Blakemore and Firth point out that individuals have the capacity to filter and choose what is to be imitated, and may intentionally act in a different way.

The Ambience of the Learning Environment

Examination of the literature from the neurosciences has confirmed the trends in educational psychology noted earlier in the chapter that challenge the view that engagement in learning can be described by cognitive factors alone. Immordino-Yang and Damasio (2007) claim that appreciation of cognitive, affective and social dimensions are essential for the provision of effective learning experiences for students. The involvement of social and affective factors in promoting cognitive development means that the ambience of the learning environment is a crucial consideration.

Cognition and emotion interact and shape each other and are a seamless part of the same experience (Franks 2010 ; Hinton et al. 2008 ; OECD 2007 , p. 243; Pessoa 2008 ; Storbeck and Clore 2007 ). The synergy between cognition and emotion is one that energizes interest in and motivation for learning. Emotional learning takes its place alongside cognition as an important part of the learning process in the development of intuitive judgements that guide learning and the application of knowledge in decision making (Immordino-Yang and Faeth 2010 ; cf. Lehrer 2009 ). In fact, as Immordino-Yang and Faeth (2010) point out, studies involving people with damage to the part of the brain that mediates the cognitive and emotional neural networks shows that although their intelligence is unimpaired these people appear to be unable to learn from experience. Like a rudder, emotion acts to guide and stabilize a person’s behaviour and application of knowledge in decision making. Effective learning, then, results not from the setting aside of emotions, but rather from the channelling and cultivation of emotional intuition. Furthermore, Immordino-Yang and Faeth state that learning that fails to elicit an emotional response will be unlikely to have an immediate or longer-term impact on behaviour and decision making. Sousa (2010) calls attention to the fact that committal of material to long-term memory requires that learning is both meaningful and relevant to the student.

The findings of neuroscience coalesce with those from the psychological and social sciences in the conceptualization of the learning environment as an ecological system (e.g. Rosiek and Beghetto 2009 ; Zembylas 2007), after the manner of Bronfenbrenner (1977) . Zembylas (2007) suggests that emotional knowledge is an indispensible aspect of teacher ‘pedagogical knowledge ’ (Shulman 1986, 1987 ) as it enables teachers to make links between themselves, their students and the curriculum content. Not only is it important for teachers to provide appropriate cognitive challenges for their students but it is also important to provide the emotional scaffolding that nurtures student interest and engagement in learning (Zembylas 2005 ). Rosiek and Beghetto (2009) consider ‘cognitive /affective, concept /emotion dichotomies ’ as being ‘exogenous ’ to the teaching and learning process (p. 181):

Emotional scaffolding describes a reality that is located in the encounter between the intentions of the teacher and their experience of the obdurate learning processes of students. (p. 182)

By use of emotional scaffolding and imaginative pedagogies, teachers are able to introduce students to new ways of relating to subject content (Rosiek and Beghetto 2009 ).

Neuroscience and Values Education

What has transpired from the examination of the implications of neuroscience for education is that development and learning cannot be reduced to an invariant linear system. Increasingly, it is recognized that learning occurs through the interaction of a complex system of factors in the ecology of the learning environment (e.g. Deakin Crick et al. 2007 ). Learning and development are dependent on the plasticity of the brain and its capacity to respond to experiences in the social and physical environment. Recent advances in epigenetics challenge the view that development and learning are driven by genetic endowment alone, but rather that the brain is structured through interactions with the environment. This means that the cultural environment contributes to cognitive, emotional and social development. Furthermore, learning is a combination of implicit and explicit systems , so that modelling and imitation become extremely powerful dynamics within the learning ecology. Cognitive, affective and social dimensions interact and are essential ingredients in learning and development. Attention to the ambience of the learning environment and the emotional scaffolding of learning emerge as vital for student engagement and interest. A positive emotional ambience of the learning environment is an essential ingredient of values education (Lovat and Clement 2008a, b ).

Values education and the attendant notions of moral development fit extremely well with the notions of ecology of learning and especially those features outlined in the discussion of the neurosciences (e.g. Kim and Sankey, 2009 ; Narvaez 2010a, b ; Sankey 2006 ). Kim and Sankey (2009) , citing Yong-Lin Moon and colleagues , argue that moral development cannot be considered to be driven solely by biological determinants. On the contrary, on an individual level, moral development has been observed to be context-sensitive and variable compared with trajectories based on aggregated scores. Moral development, then, is subject to the same influences as is development in general:

It is our thesis that moral development takes its place alongside the development of human cognition and action as a product of epigenetic emergence —assembled by the nature of the task and piggybacking on the human organisms’ ability to categorise, guided by its inherent predilection to value, in response to a multitude of nuanced environmental experiences. (Kim and Sankey, 2009 , p. 290)

Similarly, Narvaez (2010a, b) believes that mature moral functioning requires both the interaction of moral intuition, emotion, and cognition operating within moral imagination attendant with the capacities of self-management, self-reflection, the cultivation of empathy and the ability to dialogue with others about mutual moral concerns. As a means to develop such moral capacity, Narvaez (2010b, c) points to the crucial nature of the ambience of the learning climate as an influence on the development of the personality and dispositions of students. Positive classroom environments encourage a mastery rather than performance orientation and emphasize a moral atmosphere characterized by caring and a feeling of community, where moral development is sustained by discourse and democratic practices. Sankey (2006) likewise believes that particular attention must be given to the learning environment because of the impact of implicit learning, and the manner by which students absorb subconsciously the values that are implicit in their experience of the learning environment:

Values and meanings encountered in the process of education not only influence the conscious choices and actions of students, they also contribute to the making of each individual brain and influence what each self will do when actions and choices are initiated subconsciously. This seems to me to put a strong case for the centrality of values in the whole educational process. … the school itself has to become a values-based learning environment. (pp. 173–174)

Implications of the New Foundations for Teaching

As noted above, the foundations of teaching and teacher education rely on more than psychology and neuroscience. Again, the work of Habermas (1972, 1974, 1984, 1987, 1990) would seem to be central to any attempt to renew and revive these foundations. Habermas’s theory of knowing fits well with the neuroscientists’ work on the importance of affective and social factors and, furthermore, he develops a theory of social engagement and action that justifies optimism on the part of any social agency, including teaching, to be able to make a difference as long as it goes about its central business of knowing in a comprehensive and holistic way. Habermas rests his notion of effective social action (namely, praxis ) on people reaching the most sophisticated levels of knowing. In other words, in contrast with more dated foundational thinking about knowing as mainly a cognitive function, Habermas posits that the deepest forms of knowing actually rest on effective social and moral citizenship, rather than on raw cognition. Habermasian thought has potential to deepen profoundly not only our understanding of the full human developmental capacities that are implied in effective teaching but, by dint of inference, to stretch our conceptions of the role of the teacher as well.

The notion that teaching involves more than the promotion of academic performance and that learning is not a separable cognitive function but one that is enmeshed in a matrix of emotional and social development is well captured by Haim Ginott (1975) in his epithetic warning to teachers: “in order to think well, a child must feel well.” As we have seen, it is a notion that much recent educational research has confirmed. Rowe (2004) noted that, of all the teacher qualities nominated by those students who achieve best at school, it was their beliefs about care and trust in relation to the teacher that were paramount. Similarly, Louden et al. (2005) concluded that it was difficult to predict likely student effects from simple observation of teacher practice. It was the subtleties of the trusting relationship between elder and younger person that determined so much of the practical effects of learning.

Hence, constructing educational regimes that focus exclusively or even overly on a denuded conception of cognition, without equal and integrated attention to all the developmental measures, including emotional, social, moral and spiritual, are doomed to fail those who need them most. This is essentially what the Carnegie Report, cited in Chap. 1, concluded. After all, the achievers will probably achieve, whatever the inadequacies of formal education. If absolutely necessary, the achievers could, for the most part, receive their tuition outside of formal education. It is the portion of society for whom formal education, public or religious, was primarily formed in the nineteenth century, who have especial needs around holistic education. It is this portion of the population that has the greater need around matters of self-esteem, confidence and, often, social, emotional and moral development. Far from the popular commentary that continues to claim that the academic needs of this portion of the population (i.e. the ‘failing tail ’) would be served by more mastery instruction and further testing around the ‘basics’ of learning, the research insights uncovered so far help to explain why all the mastery instruction and testing in the world will achieve nothing if the whole person, social, emotional, moral and spiritual, as well as intellectual, is not drawn into a positive, encouraging, caring and trusting learning ambience where the relationship(s) between teacher and student, and student and student, are the priority. These aspects will be further elaborated in the following chapters.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we have attempted to elucidate the main features of the recently emerging neurosciences that seem most relevant to education and to values education in particular. It needs to be said that these neurosciences remain contested, in themselves and in all their applications, including to education. This is as it should be. Nonetheless, these findings cannot be summarily dismissed, either in themselves or in their application to education. Indeed, we might suggest that some of the contestation coming from education could be motivated by a sense of threat about the full ramifications for educational structures and policy, should the insights of the neurosciences continue to challenge and impact. It might also be said that we feel quite comfortable with many of the insights and ramifications. When one’s vested interests are not consumed with maintaining and defending the status quo in education, but rather with pushing its edges, as values pedagogy tends to do, then we are likely to be in a more empowered position than many educators. Certainly, the insights uncovered in this chapter fit well with the philosophical and epistemological postulations we have been dealing with, especially of scholars like Habermas whose work fundamentally challenges linear approaches to knowledge and education. These insights also offer some clues about the ‘surprising’ effects of values pedagogy so often reported on in its project work that, when teachers make their relationships with students a priority, begin to affirm them and build their self-esteem and engage in discourse around values, then students begin to settle down, behave better and become more engaged with their academic work. If we believe the insights of the neuroscientists herein, not to mention Habermas, perhaps this is not so surprising!