[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
good evening tonight I’m going to talk
about how you build a brain and I’m also
gonna talk about the role that education
may or may not play in that but before I
start I’d like you to please take a
moment turn to someone next to you and
tell them please what grades you got on
your metoo dieta
okay that has to be enough time you’d
have to have already finished it
you know you can stop now I want you to
stop
we’re losing control of the audience
okay now the reason I asked you the
reason I asked you to do that the reason
I asked you to do that
is I wanted to remind you of how
important that was at one point in your
life and of course you know you did the
work necessary to presumably get good
grades on your maturity and then you
went off to university and you realize
that all that work that you had done to
get those good marks on the maturities I
had contributed nothing to your ability
to do well at university because doing
well at university requires an entirely
different set of skills then getting
good marks on a test and in fact doing
well at your career also has nothing to
do with that and you may have found once
you began your career that also had
fairly little to do with what you’d
studied at University in fact the things
that we do in school in conventional
school typically contribute very little
to what we need to do what we need to
know or the capabilities that we need to
be successful at life
you don’t need good marks to do well in
the world
what you need is simple what you need is
you need this you need this yeah that’s
what you need
well thank you good night yeah thank you
for that okay no yeah this is what you
need you need to have a brain a brain
that works well and so you’re probably
familiar with this kind of an image of
the brain maybe you’ve seen maybe you’ve
seen an image like this one have you
ever seen an image like this yeah these
are the connections within the brain
right okay so let me show you another
picture of the brain what you’re looking
at here is actually how the brain
matures over from early childhood until
adulthood and the part that’s turning
blue that’s brain that’s maturing and
it’s becoming functional and it is
through the process of experiences in
the environment experiences in real in
the real world that the brain builds
itself in fact you probably know because
you’re a sophisticated audience that
brain development is experience
dependent you understand what I mean by
that experience dependent not all
experiences contribute to the
development of the brain to begin to
talk about the kinds of experiences that
do help build the brain I have to show
you one more brain picture yeah what is
that this is your brains version of your
body okay how your brain is constructed
the architecture of your brain has a
dramatic over representation of the
hands because in fact the reason that
you have a brain is so that your body
can interact it can live in the world in
fact the reason we evolved a brain was
because well frankly anything that
anything that moves that needs to eat or
can be eaten needs to figure out what
it’s going to do needs in order to
survive it needs to know should I move
over there to get that food source
should I go over there to avoid being
eaten or should I do something else in
fact the purpose of the brain is to
control behavior and the brain is
controlling the behavior of that guy
okay that’s how it works and for the
brain to build itself that guy needs to
engage in a certain kind of activity now
we just ended the show
that happen yeah okay that guy needs to
engage in a certain kind of activity
this kind of activity and I know it’s a
lot of words so I’m gonna say with me
all right listen as I said that guy
needs to engage in motivated effortful
repeated trial-and-error experimental
interactions with the environment and
that’s how the brain builds itself and
in fact it’s the only way the brain
builds itself in fact if you ever wanted
to learn a musical instrument you had to
care enough about learning that musical
instrument to stay motivated to apply
the effort to engage in the repeated
over and over trial and error
experimental interactions with the
environment because when we do this kind
of activity it’s like barbells for the
brain the brain is a muscle kind of and
like building any muscle you’ve got to
exercise it and you’ve got to push it as
it builds muscle and that’s how you’d
build a brain there it is again
god help us okay okay so that’s what you
have to do you understand what I’m
saying right okay now we understand that
I’m in your TEDx audience is a
sophisticated group of people if you
have children you’re thinking about the
kinds of activities you have an instinct
for it in fact you’re thinking about the
kinds of activities that you can have
your child do to help them engage in
that kind of motivated effort for
repeated trial and error experimental
interaction and with the environment and
so you do things like say yeah it’s a
good idea participate in the science
fair if you do that kind of thing in the
Czech Republic or get involved in doing
independent projects you know you want
them to find things that light them up
and maybe you’ll sample different kinds
of experiences and you’ll say yeah you
know my kid is into this kind of thing
and we’re helping him or her experience
that kind of stuff so we like things
like science fair motivation engagement
working harness loving probes you know a
lot of countries you have things like
robot competitions you have robot
competitions and the Czech Republic yeah
okay so some people like to build robots
some people like to write the software
and so it helps people find out how to
do things like work together to work
collaboratively toward a shared goal to
practice being good winner
are being good losers to have practice
that those real-world applications of
problem-solving or maybe we sent our
children to summer camp because we know
that there’s a whole set of activities
that they’re going to learn they’re
going to learn social skills by
interacting with other children in a
semi structured social environment right
I mean these are the things they need to
learn and they only learned them when
they get to have these experiences they
only build these capabilities as a
consequence of practicing them and even
sport you know some children are drawn
to sports some children are drawn to art
and as sophisticated thoughtful parents
thinking developmentally you know that
you want to line them up with these
kinds of activities but here’s an
example from a Montessori classroom
here’s another example of motivated
effortful trial-and-error experimental
interactions with an object of
Montessori called the pink tower he’s
learning to differentiate by size this
is a sensorial enrichment activity he’s
three and a half he doesn’t really
distinguish size as well but when he’s
doing this kind of activity he’s
developing that skill and he’s drawn to
it he’s driven to do it and we don’t
have time to watch the whole thing here
but is he
if we did we see in about two and a half
minutes he figures it out and then we
could watch him do it again and he does
it in 30 seconds because he’s developed
some cognitive capacity as a consequence
of practicing this activity and that’s
how you build a brain and I believe that
we want to build brains and I’m pretty
sure that we all want to build the
brains of all children and this is how
it works now a TEDx audience is probably
relatively professional type people for
the most part and and we know something
about research on families like yours
you are overwhelmingly preoccupied with
the cognitive development of your
children so you devote a lot of energy
and time to facilitating this process
energy and time that people from
different kinds of backgrounds and maybe
even different understandings wouldn’t
be able to but this is how you build a
brain it’s the only way to build a brain
you have to give this guy opportunities
to have this stuff yeah to do well to do
that that’s how you build a brain is and
it’s the only way you build a brain and
we’re wired for this I mean it is
nature’s design that children are drawn
to engage in activities that help build
their brains right now she’s learning
something about how the natural
environment is and she’s a she’s a
notice she’s sitting very nicely well
there was a time when she couldn’t do
that but her brain was drawn to nature’s
design she wanted to master that now
she’s practicing the skill development
of her of her fingers she’s refining her
senses by experience and you know that’s
how it is for all of us that’s how it
all was but this is how human beings
grow this is how we build our brains and
if you ask anybody who understands
something about brain development about
the maturation of you know higher-order
capabilities even lower order
capabilities if you ask anybody who
knows anything about the brain what
should school before they’ll say
something like this because it’s
self-evident once you understand what’s
necessary to build a brain it becomes
self-evident that this is how you should
this is not how you should it’s the only
way you can what should school before
it’s possible that school could be a
place where every child from every
background
guard lists of the kinds of experiences
they’re having outside of school could
have experiences in school that helped
facilitate this process give every
developing brain its best shot to do
this but that’s not what school usually
is for is it and school is usually for
as you know learning things and that’s
okay because there are things to learn
and you know I’m a neuropsychologist
blaney there’s a lot of things that I
needed to learn to become a competent
neuropsychologist and it’s the same
thing in your line of work whatever you
do there’s things to know yeah so you
know we have to learn material there is
content to know but when we focus solely
on content and forget capabilities and
we don’t build the brain and of course
you know how content learning works it
works oh and here’s another problem
because this isn’t an environment that’s
designed to provide children
opportunities doing what is that thing
again
motivate it you know see whatever what
if it repeat it experiment like you
can’t do that there I mean you might
have a teacher who has an inclination
and tries to you know build some of it
in but that’s not an environment
designed to build a brain but that’s
what we do at school and this is how we
evaluate school we give tests and if we
want to improve school there’s a very
superficial logic that says well I don’t
know if we want to give schools be
better what should we do well children
shall learn more stuff right because is
that what schools for to learn things
and how will we know if school is
improving well it’s simple we’ll give
them tests and if they know more stuff
as seen on the test then schools are
improving that’s the way we think about
school improvement and of course Pisa
has played a significant role in this
every three years around the world
children take Pisa tests and then the
OECD produces the piece of ranking
tables okay so the part in purple that’s
the midpoint
there’s United States we’re not doing so
great in math instantly the mind goes to
a man got to get those math scores up
and uh yeah we’re doing okay and reading
at least we’re above the midpoint in
reading a science so maybe we’re doing
okay and there’s a Chuck Republican
right away the competition is set up
isn’t it yeah then you’re kicked you’re
kicking it you’re kicking it in math
but hey man we’re winning sorry we’re
winning on reading in science and so
maybe you should get your reading and
science game together so we’re winning
so there and this spreads all over the
world every country in the world that
wants to improve education is trying to
improve performance on tests because
after all if you’re gonna if school is
gonna get made better they’re gonna know
more stuff and how will we know if they
know more stuff we’re gonna see
improvements on tests now Pasi Solberg
who is formerly with the Finnish
Ministry of Education former teacher
written widely about why Finnish
education works so well even though they
don’t chase the test scores he’s
described this trend as the global
education reform movement and that
spells jerm and if you’re quick and you
know English well you know what that
means
that’s what German is but there are
consequences to chasing the test scores
and believe me the test scores have real
importance in the United States so one
of the consequences is you stop teaching
other things or at least de-emphasize
them in fact then you especially
de-emphasize the kinds of activities
that help build the brain because those
things aren’t on the test and everybody
gets a nervous
teachers can lose their jobs schools can
close principals can get fired if
they’re not improving the test scores so
one thing that happens is school becomes
unbelievably boring now in an unrelated
study the economic analysis was done
there’s never enough funding for
education in this study they explored
what were the consequences being on
school performance if you changed from a
five-day – to a four-day school week yet
the consequence was scores went up now
roll that around in your mind for a
moment what they’ve done is they’ve
created a situation where you do better
if you get less of it that’s what
chasing test scores brings you to ellen
by the way Pisa other international
tests analyses have been done Pisa
scores predict nothing about the
economic future of a country once you’re
out of like the bottom quartile you know
what I mean the bottom 25 percent
probably don’t want to be there
okay there’s basic literacy issues
perhaps but once you’re out of there it
doesn’t really matter how people do on
pea
tests other factors are far more
important in predicting economic
development Google knows this you know
Google doesn’t care how you did on the
test Google used to be famous for doing
brain teasers and things like that they
don’t do that anymore you know what
predicts performance on the job at
Google give me an example of a time when
you solved an analytically difficult
problem that’s a highly predictive
interview question yes to do with this
how do you get a job at Google you have
a good well you have a well-built brain
that’s how you get a job at Ernst and
Young has done an analysis of incoming
employees they don’t care how you did at
university they want you to have gone to
university they don’t care how you did
they don’t care about the test scores
they don’t predict performance at our
instant young IBM did an international
study interviewed 1,700 CEOs from 68
countries in 88 and 18 industries you
know what they want they want people who
can innovate people who are creative
people who can communicate people who
can collaborate within the company and
with customers they don’t care about the
test scores and you know what not a
single one of those 1,700 CEOs said
anything about school performance
because it’s not a predictor everyone
everywhere wants this this is a
distraction what this does is it drives
our attention other places now Czech
Republic has not always had national
testing but I know that you’re into that
kind of thing now
it’s not going to improve things it’s
going to distract you as a country from
the kinds of things that really will
have an impact and this is uh-oh here we
go from 2013 this is of Education
analysis for the Czech Republic one of
the ways that Czech Republic in 2013
decided to improve school performance
was to increase more assessment and
evaluation in schools because after all
schools about learning stuff isn’t it
and how do we know if they’re learning
more stuff they’ll do better on the
tests and so how do we know at the
beginning better well we have to give
more tests so that’s the fundamental
dilemma of the modern age is it gonna be
is it gonna be god help us
is it gonna be building better brains or
is it gonna be participating in German
that’s the dilemma of Education in the
modern age thank you
[Applause]
[Applause]
you
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
good evening tonight I’m going to talk
about how you build a brain and I’m also
gonna talk about the role that education
may or may not play in that but before I
start I’d like you to please take a
moment turn to someone next to you and
tell them please what grades you got on
your metoo dieta
okay that has to be enough time you’d
have to have already finished it
you know you can stop now I want you to
stop
we’re losing control of the audience
okay now the reason I asked you the
reason I asked you to do that the reason
I asked you to do that
is I wanted to remind you of how
important that was at one point in your
life and of course you know you did the
work necessary to presumably get good
grades on your maturity and then you
went off to university and you realize
that all that work that you had done to
get those good marks on the maturities I
had contributed nothing to your ability
to do well at university because doing
well at university requires an entirely
different set of skills then getting
good marks on a test and in fact doing
well at your career also has nothing to
do with that and you may have found once
you began your career that also had
fairly little to do with what you’d
studied at University in fact the things
that we do in school in conventional
school typically contribute very little
to what we need to do what we need to
know or the capabilities that we need to
be successful at life
you don’t need good marks to do well in
the world
what you need is simple what you need is
you need this you need this yeah that’s
what you need
well thank you good night yeah thank you
for that okay no yeah this is what you
need you need to have a brain a brain
that works well and so you’re probably
familiar with this kind of an image of
the brain maybe you’ve seen maybe you’ve
seen an image like this one have you
ever seen an image like this yeah these
are the connections within the brain
right okay so let me show you another
picture of the brain what you’re looking
at here is actually how the brain
matures over from early childhood until
adulthood and the part that’s turning
blue that’s brain that’s maturing and
it’s becoming functional and it is
through the process of experiences in
the environment experiences in real in
the real world that the brain builds
itself in fact you probably know because
you’re a sophisticated audience that
brain development is experience
dependent you understand what I mean by
that experience dependent not all
experiences contribute to the
development of the brain to begin to
talk about the kinds of experiences that
do help build the brain I have to show
you one more brain picture yeah what is
that this is your brains version of your
body okay how your brain is constructed
the architecture of your brain has a
dramatic over representation of the
hands because in fact the reason that
you have a brain is so that your body
can interact it can live in the world in
fact the reason we evolved a brain was
because well frankly anything that
anything that moves that needs to eat or
can be eaten needs to figure out what
it’s going to do needs in order to
survive it needs to know should I move
over there to get that food source
should I go over there to avoid being
eaten or should I do something else in
fact the purpose of the brain is to
control behavior and the brain is
controlling the behavior of that guy
okay that’s how it works and for the
brain to build itself that guy needs to
engage in a certain kind of activity now
we just ended the show
that happen yeah okay that guy needs to
engage in a certain kind of activity
this kind of activity and I know it’s a
lot of words so I’m gonna say with me
all right listen as I said that guy
needs to engage in motivated effortful
repeated trial-and-error experimental
interactions with the environment and
that’s how the brain builds itself and
in fact it’s the only way the brain
builds itself in fact if you ever wanted
to learn a musical instrument you had to
care enough about learning that musical
instrument to stay motivated to apply
the effort to engage in the repeated
over and over trial and error
experimental interactions with the
environment because when we do this kind
of activity it’s like barbells for the
brain the brain is a muscle kind of and
like building any muscle you’ve got to
exercise it and you’ve got to push it as
it builds muscle and that’s how you’d
build a brain there it is again
god help us okay okay so that’s what you
have to do you understand what I’m
saying right okay now we understand that
I’m in your TEDx audience is a
sophisticated group of people if you
have children you’re thinking about the
kinds of activities you have an instinct
for it in fact you’re thinking about the
kinds of activities that you can have
your child do to help them engage in
that kind of motivated effort for
repeated trial and error experimental
interaction and with the environment and
so you do things like say yeah it’s a
good idea participate in the science
fair if you do that kind of thing in the
Czech Republic or get involved in doing
independent projects you know you want
them to find things that light them up
and maybe you’ll sample different kinds
of experiences and you’ll say yeah you
know my kid is into this kind of thing
and we’re helping him or her experience
that kind of stuff so we like things
like science fair motivation engagement
working harness loving probes you know a
lot of countries you have things like
robot competitions you have robot
competitions and the Czech Republic yeah
okay so some people like to build robots
some people like to write the software
and so it helps people find out how to
do things like work together to work
collaboratively toward a shared goal to
practice being good winner
are being good losers to have practice
that those real-world applications of
problem-solving or maybe we sent our
children to summer camp because we know
that there’s a whole set of activities
that they’re going to learn they’re
going to learn social skills by
interacting with other children in a
semi structured social environment right
I mean these are the things they need to
learn and they only learned them when
they get to have these experiences they
only build these capabilities as a
consequence of practicing them and even
sport you know some children are drawn
to sports some children are drawn to art
and as sophisticated thoughtful parents
thinking developmentally you know that
you want to line them up with these
kinds of activities but here’s an
example from a Montessori classroom
here’s another example of motivated
effortful trial-and-error experimental
interactions with an object of
Montessori called the pink tower he’s
learning to differentiate by size this
is a sensorial enrichment activity he’s
three and a half he doesn’t really
distinguish size as well but when he’s
doing this kind of activity he’s
developing that skill and he’s drawn to
it he’s driven to do it and we don’t
have time to watch the whole thing here
but is he
if we did we see in about two and a half
minutes he figures it out and then we
could watch him do it again and he does
it in 30 seconds because he’s developed
some cognitive capacity as a consequence
of practicing this activity and that’s
how you build a brain and I believe that
we want to build brains and I’m pretty
sure that we all want to build the
brains of all children and this is how
it works now a TEDx audience is probably
relatively professional type people for
the most part and and we know something
about research on families like yours
you are overwhelmingly preoccupied with
the cognitive development of your
children so you devote a lot of energy
and time to facilitating this process
energy and time that people from
different kinds of backgrounds and maybe
even different understandings wouldn’t
be able to but this is how you build a
brain it’s the only way to build a brain
you have to give this guy opportunities
to have this stuff yeah to do well to do
that that’s how you build a brain is and
it’s the only way you build a brain and
we’re wired for this I mean it is
nature’s design that children are drawn
to engage in activities that help build
their brains right now she’s learning
something about how the natural
environment is and she’s a she’s a
notice she’s sitting very nicely well
there was a time when she couldn’t do
that but her brain was drawn to nature’s
design she wanted to master that now
she’s practicing the skill development
of her of her fingers she’s refining her
senses by experience and you know that’s
how it is for all of us that’s how it
all was but this is how human beings
grow this is how we build our brains and
if you ask anybody who understands
something about brain development about
the maturation of you know higher-order
capabilities even lower order
capabilities if you ask anybody who
knows anything about the brain what
should school before they’ll say
something like this because it’s
self-evident once you understand what’s
necessary to build a brain it becomes
self-evident that this is how you should
this is not how you should it’s the only
way you can what should school before
it’s possible that school could be a
place where every child from every
background
guard lists of the kinds of experiences
they’re having outside of school could
have experiences in school that helped
facilitate this process give every
developing brain its best shot to do
this but that’s not what school usually
is for is it and school is usually for
as you know learning things and that’s
okay because there are things to learn
and you know I’m a neuropsychologist
blaney there’s a lot of things that I
needed to learn to become a competent
neuropsychologist and it’s the same
thing in your line of work whatever you
do there’s things to know yeah so you
know we have to learn material there is
content to know but when we focus solely
on content and forget capabilities and
we don’t build the brain and of course
you know how content learning works it
works oh and here’s another problem
because this isn’t an environment that’s
designed to provide children
opportunities doing what is that thing
again
motivate it you know see whatever what
if it repeat it experiment like you
can’t do that there I mean you might
have a teacher who has an inclination
and tries to you know build some of it
in but that’s not an environment
designed to build a brain but that’s
what we do at school and this is how we
evaluate school we give tests and if we
want to improve school there’s a very
superficial logic that says well I don’t
know if we want to give schools be
better what should we do well children
shall learn more stuff right because is
that what schools for to learn things
and how will we know if school is
improving well it’s simple we’ll give
them tests and if they know more stuff
as seen on the test then schools are
improving that’s the way we think about
school improvement and of course Pisa
has played a significant role in this
every three years around the world
children take Pisa tests and then the
OECD produces the piece of ranking
tables okay so the part in purple that’s
the midpoint
there’s United States we’re not doing so
great in math instantly the mind goes to
a man got to get those math scores up
and uh yeah we’re doing okay and reading
at least we’re above the midpoint in
reading a science so maybe we’re doing
okay and there’s a Chuck Republican
right away the competition is set up
isn’t it yeah then you’re kicked you’re
kicking it you’re kicking it in math
but hey man we’re winning sorry we’re
winning on reading in science and so
maybe you should get your reading and
science game together so we’re winning
so there and this spreads all over the
world every country in the world that
wants to improve education is trying to
improve performance on tests because
after all if you’re gonna if school is
gonna get made better they’re gonna know
more stuff and how will we know if they
know more stuff we’re gonna see
improvements on tests now Pasi Solberg
who is formerly with the Finnish
Ministry of Education former teacher
written widely about why Finnish
education works so well even though they
don’t chase the test scores he’s
described this trend as the global
education reform movement and that
spells jerm and if you’re quick and you
know English well you know what that
means
that’s what German is but there are
consequences to chasing the test scores
and believe me the test scores have real
importance in the United States so one
of the consequences is you stop teaching
other things or at least de-emphasize
them in fact then you especially
de-emphasize the kinds of activities
that help build the brain because those
things aren’t on the test and everybody
gets a nervous
teachers can lose their jobs schools can
close principals can get fired if
they’re not improving the test scores so
one thing that happens is school becomes
unbelievably boring now in an unrelated
study the economic analysis was done
there’s never enough funding for
education in this study they explored
what were the consequences being on
school performance if you changed from a
five-day – to a four-day school week yet
the consequence was scores went up now
roll that around in your mind for a
moment what they’ve done is they’ve
created a situation where you do better
if you get less of it that’s what
chasing test scores brings you to ellen
by the way Pisa other international
tests analyses have been done Pisa
scores predict nothing about the
economic future of a country once you’re
out of like the bottom quartile you know
what I mean the bottom 25 percent
probably don’t want to be there
okay there’s basic literacy issues
perhaps but once you’re out of there it
doesn’t really matter how people do on
pea
tests other factors are far more
important in predicting economic
development Google knows this you know
Google doesn’t care how you did on the
test Google used to be famous for doing
brain teasers and things like that they
don’t do that anymore you know what
predicts performance on the job at
Google give me an example of a time when
you solved an analytically difficult
problem that’s a highly predictive
interview question yes to do with this
how do you get a job at Google you have
a good well you have a well-built brain
that’s how you get a job at Ernst and
Young has done an analysis of incoming
employees they don’t care how you did at
university they want you to have gone to
university they don’t care how you did
they don’t care about the test scores
they don’t predict performance at our
instant young IBM did an international
study interviewed 1,700 CEOs from 68
countries in 88 and 18 industries you
know what they want they want people who
can innovate people who are creative
people who can communicate people who
can collaborate within the company and
with customers they don’t care about the
test scores and you know what not a
single one of those 1,700 CEOs said
anything about school performance
because it’s not a predictor everyone
everywhere wants this this is a
distraction what this does is it drives
our attention other places now Czech
Republic has not always had national
testing but I know that you’re into that
kind of thing now
it’s not going to improve things it’s
going to distract you as a country from
the kinds of things that really will
have an impact and this is uh-oh here we
go from 2013 this is of Education
analysis for the Czech Republic one of
the ways that Czech Republic in 2013
decided to improve school performance
was to increase more assessment and
evaluation in schools because after all
schools about learning stuff isn’t it
and how do we know if they’re learning
more stuff they’ll do better on the
tests and so how do we know at the
beginning better well we have to give
more tests so that’s the fundamental
dilemma of the modern age is it gonna be
is it gonna be god help us
is it gonna be building better brains or
is it gonna be participating in German
that’s the dilemma of Education in the
modern age thank you
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you
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