Abstract
Neuropragmatism takes seriously Dewey’s admonition that to solve the problems of philosophy we have to put the cortex in the brain, the brain in the nervous system, the nervous system in the organism, and the organism in nature.1 Further, we have to treat these items not as marbles in a box but as events in a historical process. This chapter is not going to solve all the problems of education. It does, however, present an approach to education which incorporates neuroscience and anthropology and presents a challenge to less holistic approaches by following Dewey’s advice to contextualize. We proceed by arguing that neuroscience does have a role to play in educational theory when we set aside scientism and follow pragmatism’s reconstruction of the role of science in society. We then offer an illustration of how neuroscience can be useful in thinking about education by challenging the approach to education implicit in Daniel Kahneman’s recent book Thinking, Fast and Slow.2 From there we move to a more holistic approach which employs anthropology and neuroscience to ground an apprenticeship model of education. We conclude with a discussion of some general implications of our apprenticeship model.
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Notes
John Dewey, Experience and Nature, in The Later Works of John Dewey, vol. 1, ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1984), p. 224.
Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (New York: Fanar, Straus and Giroux, 2011).
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Usha Goswami, ‘Neuroscience and Education: From Research to Practice?’ Nature Reviews Neuroscience 7(5) (2006): 406–413.
Thomas Alexander, ‘Pragmatic Imagination’ Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 26 (1990): 325–348.
Steven Fesmire, John Dewey and Moral Imagination (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003), p. 126.
James Campbell, ‘Dewey’s Conception of Community’ in Reading Dewey: Interpretations for a Postmodern Generation, ed. L. A. Hickman (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), pp. 23–42.
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Joanna A. Christodoulou and Nadine Gaab, ‘Using and Misusing Neuroscience in Education-Related Research’, Cortex 45(4) (2009): 555–557.
Marco Iacoboni, Mirroring People: the New Science of How We Connect with Others (New York: Fanar, Straus and Giroux, 2008).
Eric Jensen, ‘Brain-based Learning: A Reality Check’, Educational Leadership 57(7) (2000): 76–80.
Alistair Smith, Accelerated Learning in the Classroom (Bodmin, UK: Network Educational Press Ltd., 1996).
David Franks, Neurosociology: The Nexus between Neuroscience and Social Psychology (New York: Springer, 2010).
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Shaun Gallagher, How The Body Shapes The Mind (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
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Schulkin, Adaptation and Well-Being: Social Allostasis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).
Jeremy Naydler, Goethe on Science: A Selection of Goethe’s Writings (Edinburgh: Horis Books, 1996).
David Walker, Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World (State College: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002).
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© 2014 Bill Bywater and Zachary Piso
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Bywater, B., Piso, Z. (2014). Neuropragmatism and Apprenticeship: A Model for Education. In: Solymosi, T., Shook, J.R. (eds) Neuroscience, Neurophilosophy and Pragmatism. New Directions in Philosophy and Cognitive Science. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137376077_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137376077_9
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-47758-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-37607-7
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