I recently visited Barry Rubiou over at West Bay University’s Cognition Lab. There, they are working on a brand new form of instruction guided by the latest findings in neural imagining. They call this ‘Neuro-Scientific Pedagogy’ or NSP for short and it offers the potential to totally revolutionise the work of schools.

Different sections of the brain highlighted in different colours.

Brain scanning studies conducted in Rubiou’s lab have demonstrated that we learn less efficiently when under extreme duress, when in physical pain or when intoxicated. We never knew this before and it totally explains why traditional forms of instruction are completely ineffective.

Rubiou’s team have also identified that our brains actually grow when we make a mistake! This happens even if we are not aware that we have made a mistake. It also happens before we have even made a mistake. This has massive implications. For instance, teachers should guide students to make as many mistakes as possible and assessments should credit mistakes more than correct answers.

But this isn’t all. Rubiou is set on developing a totally new and unique pedagogy. He thinks that because of neurons, children should not be taught artificial procedures. “We know from scans that the brain privileges narrative,” he explains. So, instead of teaching children maths, we should consider embedding a maths problem in a story about a duck and a briefcase. Students will then use their own strategies to solve the problem; a problem that will now be irresistible. After all, that’s what real mathematicians do – it’s how Newton made-up calculus!

So watch this space. The neuroscience revolution is set to utterly change the education landscape. Expect more ideas that you’ve never heard about before and that nobody can disagree with because brain scans.