Education and Neuroscience: Friends, foes or something in-between?

Three years ago I took a course on service-learning and developed a psychology service-learning course where psychology students would work with local primary and secondary school teachers to implement the latest findings from psychology and neuroscience in their courses. In association with this proposed class I also proposed a research study in which I would assess the neuroscience literacy of teachers and their willingness to learn more about the latest in psychology and neuroscience research and how it could interface with various aspects of the classroom experience. This project was heartily endorsed and approved by the University of Iowa IRB but then soundly rejected by the Iowa City School Board.

At the end of the course, for my final project I wrote a paper that I later submitted to a special issue on ways neuroscience can contribute to education that was rejected. I rewrote the paper and submitted it it to a neuroscience and education journal and was rejected for the neuroscience being to simplified. I rewrote the paper and submitted it to a broad community engagement journal and was rejected with the thought that the community wouldn't want to know about the topic. I then most recently rewrote the paper and submitted it to a higher education and community engagement journal and was again rejected (after being in review for 9 months!) and sent back very few comments where the reviewers appeared to misunderstand the what type of article it had been submitted as.  With these three years of experiences, although I see the relationship between neuroscience and education as potentially fruitful and mutually beneficial, I don't think that sentiment is shared in either field.

Source

Recently the Guardian touched on the contentious relationship between neuroscience and education. The article beings by noting the number of nonsense neuroscience claims that make their way into the educational system. Quickly though it notes a program called, "I'm a scientist - Get me out of here" which is a public engagement initiative connecting scientists with the public, in particular children. I'm glad to see this program mentioned in the context of bringing neuroscience and education together. It tells me that I am on the right path trying to bring neuroscience and education together and taking the right tact by brining educators into the mix early, trying to see what they want to know about neuroscience rather than just telling them that right-left brain teaching and multiple intelligences are nonsense. Once I settle somewhere permanently I'll be able to form the long-term reciprocal relationships necessary to carry out this work.