Book Review On "The Neuroscience of Learning and Development: Enhancing Creativity, Compassion, Critical Thinking, and Peace in Higher Education" edited by Marilee J. Bresciani Ludvik

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“the commodity of higher education is not the course-by-course, credit-hour-accumulated degree; rather the commodity of higher education is the human process of learning and development that can be measured through direct evidence gathered in reflective learning portfolios.”

“The Neuroscience of Learning and Development” edited by Marilee J. Bresciani Ludvik highlights the critical perspective of holistic learner development through education, as concisely and impactfully portrayed by the above postulation. These viewpoints were duly affirmed and validated by presenting a wealth of recent neuroscience-based research findings. The phenomenon of “whole-person development" necessarily include enhancement of a number generic learner characteristics or skills such as critical thinking, creativity, attention regulation (AR), emotion regulation (ER), cognitive regulation (CR), self-awareness, metacognitive abilities, flexible-thinking, compassionate attitude, resilience and the like. As implied, developing such generic characteristics in a boundary-spanning manner is of more importance and useful than merely mastering a narrow domain-specific set of skills or knowledge. In short, it is about the overall well-being of the learner at the time as well as into the future that is the most important. In effect, appropriate and well-proven measures or practices are encouraged, both from educational professionals as well as learners, to reduce the anxiety and chronic stress levels of learners that impact negatively on learning, development and overall well-being. There is much overlap in meaning in the phenomena of learning, human development and well-being. Well-being relates to better cognitive functions, flexible thinking, enhanced memory, good sleep and weight balance, good physiological response to immune function, inflammatory processes, heart disease and the like. In other words, the significance of the integrative operation of essentially the cognitive and emotional domains is emphasised. The process of learning/human development is represented as a process of Integrative Inquiry (INIQ) in a deeper sense:

“combine (a) the knowledge gained from research, course learning, and book learning with (b) the wisdom gained from intuition, sensing, and the mindful experiencing of emotions with (c) the ability to embrace the unknown, be curious, and inquire into that we cannot yet see.”

As an insightful comparison, in a contemporary education system, parts (b) and (c) are likely to be the missing or less focused links while some selected parts of (a) are given prime attention. More specifically, evaluating implicit learning undergone while engaging in (a) and (b) would be difficult unless resorting to assessing learning portfolios, journal entries or answers to open-ended questions. After all, the brain is a structurally boundary spanning and highly interconnected organ. It has the dynamic feature of neuroplasticity that enables us to adapt to what we are interested, found useful and paying attention. Such an educational focus contrasts from widely practiced, contemporary systems in which learners are “trained” for a narrow skill set pertaining to a particular domain area, in a segmented manner, as opposed to an integrated manner, as if programming or configuring robots or machines to perform specific, routine tasks, stifling structurally inherent human creativity. If we pay attention only to the problems of our department or the organisation, then we will not be able to see beyond this constrained view in order to understand the real problems in the real world, let alone attempting to find solutions in a creative and compassionate manner. With enhanced AR, ER and CR abilities, we should be able to divert our focus to where it is needed the most.  In “The Neuroscience of Learning and Development”, the authors do justice to the needs of the current world by emphasising on the multidisciplinary perspectives of education. The essential role played by mindfulness and compassionate training practices in the important human development processes involving AR, ER and CR are quite correctly highlighted, irrespective of the area or discipline of study. Compassionate practices decrease the bias and inhuman treatments, resulting in happier and more productive citizens and workforce and better interpersonal relationships. Further, how such human developmental processes play a vital role in leadership training are presented to possibly direct our prospective leaders on the right path to guide our world. What the world needs is that leaders who are comfortable with uncertainty, complexity and unknown nature of problems we are facing as well as we are to face on an ongoing basis into the future. This is the reason why the authors have pinpointed the regulation of attention, emotions and cognition as of prime importance on an individual or grassroots level. Finally, the authors have provided guidance on how to effect a major transformation in the educational forefront as described by effectively and appropriately managing the process of this dramatic change. Yes, it is a complete paradigm change with a focus on the “whole person” development, with the emphasis on inherent human nature, human characteristics and human development. An invaluable feature of the transformed system is that, despite all the positive features, the new system is highly affordable to masses due to the fact that the new measures or practices used, for example, for developing AR, ER and CR, are not complicated to understand or carry out; an urge for a change from top-down is what is needed, and probably what is hard to assimilate.  

Hopefully, we would be able to see many in educational leadership/administration/policy-making positions around the world keen and courageous to embrace the described evidence-based, much-needed transformation to direct our individual societies to sustainability. We, along with the authors, need those responsible to suspend judgement of what we know to be true and prolong a state of inquiry with an open mind, even on matters we refused to pay attention before, to identify what is best for us, as a whole, and for our future generations.

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