Recommended products:

I am glad that you keep coming back to this site. That is why I want to remind you to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting again!

Unleashing the Power of Perceptual Change The Potential of Brain Based Teaching




Renate and Geoffrey Caine believe that education today is like Dr. Dolittle’s “Push me-Pull you” creature, with a head at each end, making it face two directions. One piece is moving forward, another wants to go back, and the middle feels the tension. That tension is what creates opportunities for new possibilities. In the new ASCD book Education on the Edge of Possibility, the Caines begin to explore those possibilities by detailing how they strived to bring their theory of learning to life in two schools. Their theory is based on a wholistic interpretation of brain research in which brain, mind, and body work together to form a dynamic unity.

Unleashing the Power of Perceptual Change continues their exploration by unveiling what the authors call perceptual orientations, differing views of reality that frame the ways people think about education and teaching. The Caines believe that unleashing genuine student potential requires educators with a particular outlook on reality. That outlook includes an appreciation for the interconnectedness of everything.

In the authors’ view, the key to successfully transforming education so that students guide their own learning lies in educators’ ability to transform themselves, to change their perceptual orientation. This book documents the voyage of exploration as the Caines watched teachers change from individuals who use traditional teaching and beliefs about learning to those who are at home with messy, rich, complex environments where possibility and opportunity rule. Their approach provides a glimpse of the many options open to educators.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Brilliant and Inspired
While I am slightly amused by the negative reviewer’s clever (if vapid) flare in creating new words to criticize the book and the author’s self-congratulatory defense (giving herself five stars, of course), I have to say this book is a rare blessing–the authors have combined a deeply felt passion (not only about education but about society in general) with a rigorous study of educational systems and emerging research in neuroscience. In truth, I can’t fault them for congratulating themselves because I too wish to congratulate them for their efforts. As a teacher who often feels frustrated and even demoralized by a seemingly absurd educational system, I am inspired by their elegant diagnosis and prescription for change. It has helped me to radically expand my notion of what education is and what it can do.

1 Star Pseudo-science. Pure propaganda for constructivism.
As if U.S. schools were not saturated with enough child-damaging fads (whole language, constructivism, discovery learning, developmentally appropriate practices), the Caines try to provide a “scientific” foundation for faddish twaddle by deriving instructional practices from brain research that is considered questionable by brain researchers themselves. This sort of bunk will appeal to morons: i.e, self-styled, knee-jerk “progressive” miseducators and education “deformers.”. . .

5 Stars Author’s note
Our book reports on reseach conducted with teachers, administrators and university students and faculty. What we suggest is that beliefs about good teaching run along a continuum. At one end is the belief in traditional teaching that must include teacher delivery of facts and skills to be memorized. It asserts that most learners must be coerced into learning. At the other end of the continuum we have the whole language, constructivist view which believes that the learner must be meaningfully engaged in learning. We conclude that these individuals at opposite ends of the continuum inevitably can not communicate with each other. The reviews represented here prove our point perfectly.

5 Stars Teaching for compliance or for self-efficacy?
Through examining and categorizing teaching techniques as presented in a diversity of teacher interviews,the Caines continue their pursuit of understanding and maximizing the potential of brain-based learning. They draw distintions between the all too prevalent practices which lead to downshifting, a kind of brain function regression, in contrast to the conditions a teacher can provide which honor the student as a human being on a quest for life’s personal meaning, the teacher and the student on a mutual search for self-efficacy. Teachers seeking new perspectives will find themselves drawn into the realm of education on the edge of possibility and faced with some serious soul-searching as they examine and question their own teaching. At least I did.

Buy/More Info

Recommended products:

Tagged with: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Filed under: Book

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!