Yolanda U. Trapp
Knowing more about how the brain learns will raise our level of experience that will lead us to use that new knowledge to improve student's success. The public has never before demanded so much of schools and teachers. Yet at the same time, we have a continuous stream of new knowledge about how the brain learns that will enhance our school and classroom practices. This is an excellent opportunity to create permanent liaisons among the neuroscientists, the cognitive psychologists, and the education field. By working together, we can improve our own teaching. We cannot forget none of these fields works separately. As the child grows, there results a more complex unity of the whole person, related to a broader world.
While libraries are full of technical books written about medical research, about how the brain works and also on the subject of hemispheric specialization, I feel that teachers and parents will benefit having the information restated in terms of the academic skills children must master in order to be successful in our educational system. I believe we ought to look at the research in terms of what it tells us about how children learn, rather than why they cannot learn. It is important to understand that children process information and learn in a variety of ways. I believe that by examining hemispheric specialization and dominance and by identifying individual thinking patterns, we can find teaching methods that will meet each child's needs.
