Translator: Monica Castillo Reviewer: Chawanrat Sukhuwit
I remember my second year of elementary school
arriving at a new city, new friends, family.
Everything was new,
Obviously, this to a tender child, just seven years old
very overweight, chubby,
causes more fears and uncertainties than certainties.
I remember my first day, I was just on my way to school
and I didn’t want to go to school.
I told my mom:
“Mom, my uniform is completely green”
“a donkey may bite me”,
as if it was grass.
My mom answered, “What are you talking about?”
“You have to go to school right now”
Two years later, I remember getting up late for school.
They didn’t let me in.
I went back home and started to cry my eyes out.
Why?
Because they didn’t let me into that place I wanted to go so much.
It’s not a childish thing,
because I also remember when I returned from my master’s.
I was returning to Mexico, involuntarily and abruptly.
As soon as I got on the plane,
I remember that I began to cry as if a switch was turned on,
like Maria Magdalena.
Luckily, a flight attendant was there
and he was giving me all the napkins provided for the trip.
While crying, I wrote a poem for the university
that welcomed me in that city.
It’s funny how it could be possible that I went from hating school to loving it.
It’s interesting how all of us,
can go from just acquiring knowledge from a supplier
to love the place where we study
and write poems about your university while crying.
How is it then, that we can achieve this
as academic institutions and as professors?
Isn’t that the ideal to which we would all aspire?
That a student, whatever they study:
taekwondo, elementary school, master’s degree, cooking,
whatever it is,
when they leave their study facility,
they have the thrill of writing
even a poem for it.
In short, there are many things and many edges that affect education.
Today I want to share an experience and a science,
that is Neuroscience.
How Neuroeducation changed my life
and the world in which I was studying,
and how now it’s changing all of our world.
It is very interesting because as Dr. Francisco Mora said:
“It is impossible to try to teach without knowing the brain.”
That would be like trying to design a glove without having seen a hand before.
Impossible.
Although it is true that when we talk about education,
we talk about a multidimensional and multifactorial topic
in which many variants are included,
Neuroeducation, fortunately, is taking very strong,
very solid and very large steps,
toward a place where we should walk today:
To understand our brain,
so that we can later understand ourselves,
and until then, start educating people.
Neuroscience is very interesting.
And for this I say, there is a world of possibilities,
there is a world of information.
But I would like to focus on some very basic and elementary aspects
that perhaps any educator and any student should know.
For example, one of them is:
If you want to improve the performance of any student when they are already
in the classroom, you’re a bit late.
Why?
Because there are many stimuli prior to arriving at the classroom
that strongly affect a person’s learning.
One of them may be food, hydration, sleep, or exercise.
All these factors directly impact
the way that the student arrives at the classroom.
Here we could get as creative as we’d like, for example:
schools could now allow drinking or eating in classrooms
because it stimulates learning.
It’s an archaic stimulus that our brain needs.
And this doesn’t have to be something very complicated,
maybe just a simple snack to eat and drink,
water, surely for drinking,
since it’s the best drink for our brain.
That would be enough.
And maybe this sounds a bit contradictory because you might say:
“As an academic institution and as a professor, what can I do about it?”
Well, you can start changing the rules of the game
to start changing education.
Since we are talking about the professor, precisely today, our role changes,
it changes radically.
Education, although has changed over time and has improved,
and we have done many good things,
now it is also true that our role as professors has transformed.
It is very complicated that you as a professor can have more information
than an entire database,
than a series of academic articles on the Internet,
than an entire library.
It’s complicated.
It will happen to you in one of your classes or it has already happened to you:
“Hey, this is like this.”
Take out their cell phone and, let’s see if what the professor says is true.”
Our job, apart from teaching, at this time becomes facilitating.
We have to be learning facilitators.
We have to encourage the student to learn.
Teach them to love learning.
Find the right motivations that make the students themselves,
when they leave the classroom, say:
“What is that that I saw in class?”
And that they want more of it.
that they yearn for learning,
that they love learning.
Whether you realize it or not, as a professor, you influence your students.
I remember the person from high school who, perhaps, taught me to read,
and I’m not talking about interpreting words
or understanding texts.
I mean the pleasure of reading.
The person who taught me this
created such an environment
that made us all want to learn.
A competitive environment,
a kind atmosphere,
a friendly environment,
but also a competitive one.
An environment in which everyone aspired to the book,
not only for its content but for reading.
And this was very important because it totally changed my life.
And it is right now, that we’re talking about the environment,
that Neuroscience helps us discover that the environment
is so important for the student.
It is important for our brain.
It is therefore important for our learning.
A child or an adult who is affected somehow at their place of study,
either emotionally,
either because they didn’t eat well,
either because of any other problems they have,
their learning abilities diminish.
So, here we realize that what and who we surround ourselves with
are crucial to our learning.
What and who we surround ourselves with
can be our worst barrier,
or our greatest strength for learning.
And notice that I’m not judging anyone at all.
But even unintentionally,
some people can be our detractors.
Or maybe they can unintentionally help us.
Just as I am grateful to that high school professor
and perhaps he still doesn’t know it.
Also, there are people
who can delay your progress without them realizing it.
The environment is very powerful for a student to become a better learner.
And since we’re talking of the environment and the effects
that can generate an impact on your education,
we need to talk about emotions.
Emotions play a very important role in our brain.
Because although emotions sometimes deprive us of the details,
it is also more than clear that
they are the most powerful learning fixer.
Emotions directly influence the person who is learning.
And we can talk about different types of learning, about different worlds,
about different stages, and different ages of people.
But emotions don’t change.
Emotions have an influence.
This is interesting because, whether you realize it or not,
whether you apply it or not,
whether you want it or not,
you are directly influencing the emotions of your students.
Regardless of what your class is about,
regardless of the type of study you are teaching.
Emotions are major fixers of learning.
You influence them,
whether you realize it or not.
If we’re going to learn something, then we better learn it with joy.
It’s true that the old school of beating and punishing is over.
Now, we have to take emotions to a positive aspect.
I told you a moment ago, about a high school professor
who helped us to prepare ourselves, to read, to become a better person.
Curious thing about this professor,
now that I look back on it and use Neuroscience to understand it,
I realize that he promoted us through encouragement even
before arriving at the classroom.
He created a bond with us by being a learning facilitator.
He created us an environment that we are talking about.
And he definitely affected our emotions in many ways.
Today I remember him like to few people.
Neuroscience is a gigantic thing,
it is something that is moving rapidly forward.
More has been discovered in the last five years,
than in the past five thousand years
about how our brain works.
There is a world of knowledge,
but my main intention would be to invite you to enter that world,
to immerse yourself in that world.
Because today, more than ever, Neuroscience is very important
to evolve at the educational level,
at institutions,
to professors,
and to students.
Neuroscience can change and it will change the world of education.
I invite you to join this.
When I entered the world of Neuroscience,
or when Neuroscience entered my world,
it changed everything completely.
My relationships changed.
My way of understanding the world changed.
My way of perceiving the world changed.
It can surely change yours too,
because as Facundo Manes, also a great neuroscientist, said:
“Education is not a pretty phrase, not a slogan.
It’s what changed my life.”
Definitely, Neuroscience can change your life.
I am completely sure of that.
Education can also make you a completely different person.
Either it makes you a slave because you leave with what’s been taught to you,
or it makes you the master of your future.
At the end of the day, we are what the education makes us.
Thank you very much.