With all due respect Minister: all brains do not learn in the same way
For some, watching paint dry is more exciting than tuning into Parliament’s Scrutiny Week hearings. On Wednesday afternoon this week I had the Education sessions on in the background at work - so I could turn up the volume for anything interesting. One discussion jumped out at me.
When asked by Te Pāti Māori MP Tākuta Ferris why there was no dedicated funding for kaupapa Māori education in the Budget, Minister Erica Stanford replied that investment into structured literacy would have “the greatest outcome for our Māori kids” and did not need to be based on kaupapa Māori because “every brain learns the same”. [1]
I am not qualified to speak about kaupapa Māori learning, but I invite academics, kaiako and tumuaki Māori to respond to the MInister’s whakaaro. One thing I do know is that NCEA results for mokopuna in Kura Māori settings, compared to akonga Māori enrolled in English medium settings, suggest that a differentiated, indigenous way of learning is more effective for many or all Māori learners.
However, I am very interested in the field of neuroscience in relation to learning, student engagement and pedagogy. After more than three decades in education, as a teacher and then a principal, I have, for the last five years, been studying educational and developmental neuroscience with Dr Bruce Perry, one of the world’s foremost experts in child psychiatry and neuroscience.
Having said that, anyone who claims to fully understand the brain is wrong. It is the most complex, miraculous organ of the human body with 86 -100 billion neurons. And the number of synapses, the connections that form between neurons, is near incomprehensible.
“The number of synapses in the human brain is estimated to be nearly a quadrillion, or 1,000,000,000,000,000. And each individual synapse contains different molecular switches. If you want to think about the brain in terms of an electrical system, a single synapse is not equivalent to a transistor — it would be more like a thousand transistors.” - Dr Rachel Tompa, The Allen Institute, Seattle, U.S. [2]
The neurons, synapses and glial cells of the human brain are not all the same and are still not well understood by scientists. It is still unknown how many different kinds of neurons there are, although scientists estimate it is around 100.
If there are no neuroscientists on this planet who fully understand the brain and how humans learn, despite spending decades of research and study in this field, then neither a school principal nor a government minister, without an education background, should claim to understand the brain. The scientists themselves will say they still only understand a fraction of what there is to know- despite neuroscience being a rapidly developing field thanks to technological advances.
Neuroscientist Dr Christof Koch, for example, describes the brain as:
“... by far the most complex system humanity has ever been confronted with…if you are looking at entities like bodies, stars, trees, rocks, microbes, viruses, and planets, in its complexity …the brain, by any metric, is the most complex piece of highly organised matter in the universe”. [ibid]
So why then has a reductionist, simplistic view of the brain, in the context of learning, become so popular along with the increasingly pervasive misconception that all children learn in the same way? In a word: politics.
The push for a mandated, single approach to instruction, often driven by policy rather than nuanced pedagogical understanding, can be detrimental. It can stifle teacher autonomy, limit the use of varied instructional strategies, and fail to address the individual learning profiles of students, including those from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds, as well as neurodivergent learners.
As Dr Sarah Aiono writes:
“The Minister of Education has advocated for a 'one-size-fits-all' approach, suggesting a standardised strategy as the solution to our educational challenges. While uniformity in education might offer simplicity in implementation and assessment, this strategy is fundamentally at odds with the nuanced and diverse needs of our student population.” [3]
So what are some of these nuanced and diverse needs? What are some of the different approaches, environments and considerations that different brains need in order to learn effectively?
The words neurodiverse and neurodivergent give us a clue.
Neurodiversity is a concept that acknowledges the natural variation in human brains and recognises that conditions such as autism, ADHD, and dyslexia are not deficits but rather different ways of processing information. This perspective challenges the traditional view that there is a single "normal" or "correct" way for brains to function. Neurodivergent individuals often exhibit unique learning styles, sensory processing abilities, and communication preferences, which necessitate educational approaches that differ from those designed for other learners.
Some brains are more sensory sensitive than others and prefer particular sensory environments and approaches. Pam Collins, a neurodivergent educator, tells us that non-autistic brains can block out 98% of incoming sensory information, whereas autistic people do not have the same gatekeeping ability and often overwhelming levels of sensory input is received by their brains. [4]
This information is processed first in lower areas of the brain where the overwhelm can cause dysregulation and restrict learning capacity in the cortex.
Another group of neurodivergent learners are those with ‘Acquired brain differences’ (a term attributed to Kassiane Asasumasu (2000) by Collins [ibid] ). Children whose brains have been significantly shaped by childhood adversity, trauma, neglect and prolonged stress have neurodivergent brains. They too will need particular approaches and environments to help them learn. Too often our education system expects these children to engage and achieve in traditional, behaviourist, classrooms with standardised curricula and a paucity of nurturing, trauma-informed educators. These students need relational, calm adults with whom they can experience a felt sense of safety and co-regulation to help them access the upper, cortical areas of their brains, needed for self-control and learning.
And what does the education system do when these children cannot self-regulate and engage at school? Too often we punish and disconnect them with time out, stand downs, suspensions and exclusions.
Learning differences and brain plasticity:
The human brain is remarkably adaptable and capable of continuous change throughout life, a phenomenon known as neuroplasticity. This inherent flexibility means that the brain is not a static organ but rather one that is constantly reorganising itself in response to new experiences, learning, and environmental stimuli. This understanding of brain plasticity provides a strong scientific basis for why a "one size fits all" approach to education is fundamentally flawed; if brains are constantly changing and adapting, then the ways in which individuals learn and process information will naturally vary.
Research in cognitive neuroscience has consistently demonstrated that individuals possess diverse cognitive strengths and preferences. For example, some learners may excel in visual processing, others in auditory, and still others in kinesthetic learning. While the concept of distinct "learning styles" has been debated, the underlying principle that individuals approach learning tasks with different cognitive tools and strategies remains robust. These differences are not merely superficial but are rooted in the unique structural and functional organisation of each person's brain, shaped by a combination of genetic predispositions and life experiences.
Brain plasticity allows for different pathways to learning. When one area of the brain is damaged or functions differently, other areas can often compensate and take over functions, highlighting the brain's remarkable capacity for reorganisation. This adaptability is particularly relevant in educational settings, as it suggests that if a particular teaching method is not effective for a student, alternative approaches can stimulate different neural pathways and facilitate learning. Effective educational practices, therefore, should leverage this inherent plasticity by offering varied instructional methods, diverse learning materials, and opportunities for students to engage with content in ways that align with their individual cognitive profiles.
The scientific understanding of brain diversity and neuroplasticity underscores the need for personalised and adaptive educational strategies. Recognising that each brain is unique and capable of evolving through experience means that education must move beyond rigid, standardised models to embrace a more flexible, inclusive, and responsive approach that caters to the inherent variability of human learning.
Brains develop in a use-dependent fashion
One of the government-mandated components of the Structured Literacy Professional Development package is the promotion of the idea that learning to read is not natural, unlike learning to talk.
Dr Bruce Perry teaches that the brain will form neural connections and lay down new memory, associations and learning in a use-dependent manner: what we practise we learn. The brain grows, organises and functions in response to its experiences.[5]
With enough repetitions of two or more pieces of sensory information these connections become memory. Enough repetitions of spoken words and phrases connected to their meaning will help a child develop oral language. In the gym, enough reps of a strengthening exercise will develop a muscle; with piano practice, enough repetitions of a piece of music will help us to learn it. If you cover an animal’s eyes from birth they will not develop sight as they haven’t had repeated experiences with visual input.
For some children enough exposure to books, being read to and opportunities to explore literature and practise reading will be enough for them to learn to read. But of course not for all children - as brains don’t all learn in the same way.
Ask any new entrant teacher about the variability of reading ability in their class in the latter part of a school year. It is common for children to achieve ‘reading ages’ of between 3 and 7 or 8 years in this first year of school… because not all brains learn in the same way or at the same pace. When I taught new entrants I saw this range. One year I had a five year old who had been at school for just a couple of months and could read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory fluently. Similarly I have taught a 9 year old who had a ‘reading age’ of 5 years. Same teacher, same methods: different brains.
From the effectiveness of Kaupapa Māori learning approaches, and the scientific understanding of neurodiversity and brain plasticity, it is clear that human learning is a complex and highly individualised process. Attempts to impose a "one size fits all" educational model, such as those sometimes advocated under the banner of the "Science of Learning", risk failing a significant portion of the student population by ignoring their unique cognitive profiles, cultural backgrounds, and developmental pathways.
Let us not adopt simplistic, reductionist, standardised notions about how children learn. Their brains are complex and unique.
"Ko te ahurei o te tamaiti, arahia ō tātou mahi"
"Let the uniqueness of the child guide our work"
[2] Allen Institute. (2022) Why is the human brain so difficult to understand? We asked 4 neuroscientists. - https://alleninstitute.org/news/why-is-the-human-brain-so-difficult-to-understand-we-asked-4-neuroscientists/
[3] Aiono, S. (2024)
Why New Zealand’s Education Needs a ‘One Size Fits One’ Approach.
LinkedIn.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-new-zealands-education-needs-one-size-fits-approach-aiono-odwfc
[4] Collins, P. (from a presentation in 2024) Neurodiversity and the myth of normal
https://endseclusion.buzzsprout.com/891283/episodes/15789675-neurodiversity-and-the-myth-of-normal
[5] Carlowe, J. (2002) Back to the Beginning https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2002/jan/20/life1.lifemagazine6#:~:text=altered%20brain%20growth.-,',connections%20it%20needs%20to%20function.
Thanks so much Lynda. I have been so frustrated with the kōrero around this, and suspicious about the science of learning, given its focus on such a narrow aspect of our cognition (primarily memory). I’m especially suspicious about the alignment with a narrowing of our curriculum towards abstract “biologically secondary” knowledge that casts other ways of knowing as “folk science”. It would be fantastic to see this published in mainstream media, so people can begin to see how much manipulation has been going on to shore up the supremacy of one particular worldview over all others. Brilliant writing!
Thanks Lynda
As an ex science/human bio teacher I have long thought that we pay far too little attention to the complex systems that drive our own bodies- and especially the brain!