Thinking about education: the school of the future

I've never had one of those ideas that worth a million dollars, but if one day I have one, I guess it would begin to build it with what I want to sell or share. That's why if one day the experts of education and learning will be seated to build a new paradigm, I think the first step would be to find out what everyone has in common, that,  can make successful the new paradigm globally.

I think if I want my educational idea succeed, I would try to cover a large market, in this case I want the whole world (literally, the world) can have the opportunity to learn without discrimination, without being labeled as stupid or genius. I think those labels, instead of helping, kill futures CEOs . I want the children can have happy childhoods and become successful adults. It's a simple goal, right?.

So I would sit down to analyze everything what I learned with so many discussion groups about education. The most reactionary group and I think with best proposals is Learning without Frontiers, the group advocates for a education with no walls based on technology and innovation. But something is missing.

First, think: what's what around the world all people have in common?

It is neither money nor technology, for example  Latin American countries are far from economic competition (World Economic Forum, 2011), and in more than one occasion I said that education does not require money or speeches, so I wish to continue being consistent with my ideals.

The technology comes sometimes with a delay of years to countries with less recourses, and it is natural for families to think first to feed their children than in a technological toy that will open the door of education.

Certainly there is a cultural barrier, provided by the history of each place, customs and culture and must be added the language barrier that makes some have more advantages over others. Since children of 6 years old who have never taken a pencil, to children who born with the remote in their hand.

So if we continue to thinking a little, so that all human beings around the world have in common is a brain.

And it's not necessary a brain with high capacities, ultimately education seeks to provide that window of opportunity. Besides the exposure to the environment (including cultural influences) that creates cytoarchitectural differences, and are those cytoarchitectural differences which allow each person to be more suitable for certain tasks (Dzib Goodin, 2011a).

Perhaps the only complication that could impede to learn are those syndromes that are involved in the process of memory, because  is known that are memory and learning are closely linked, but beyond that, all brains, even those effected development disorders can be adapted, but learn in different ways.

From the evolutionary point of view, learning is necessary for the survival of the species and is present in all of them, under the principle of survival of the fittest, so it depends on environmental adaptation and vice versa.

Understanding the brain processes in education, helps to define what and how to teach (Dzib Goodin, 2011b), and allows to see the learner from a different perspective.

So based on this basic principle, including the brain in education, it is possible to set out the principles that shape learning.

In a text written for teachers and parents, I listed how the brain learns, from which it can be said that the brain has the urge to learn. Learning regulates systems even before birth, it's not necessary a school or office hours to learn because this allows adaptation to the needs of the environment and ensures that each generation continue developing with new evolutionary advantages (Dzib Goodin, 2011c).

Learning allows the strengthening of neural networks that permit perpetual motion of new learning. Unlike what many psychologists claimed, only a few systems could have critical moments, such as language, movement, and perhaps to a lesser degree vision and hearing (Roman Carboni, Del Rio Grande, Chapel Maestu and Ortiz, 2006; Gage, 2007, Dehaene, Nakamura, Jobert, Kuroki, Ogawa, and Cohen, 2009), but even for these processes should be considered brain plasticity, which will later accept the creation of new networks that delayed repair functions (Cook, 2010).

If you look at the babies, it is obvious that they make several attempts before achieving perfection of movements or language (Hartshorne, 2009), this is something that has forgotten the formal school, but let us see the fun of learning and the need for repetition. Nothing is more gratifying to see the kids doing the same actions over and over again, and as adult e can get  bored, while children ask: do it again and again!, And have you noticed how much children  enjoy doing things?, that's why I think this is another principle of the brain: repetition and joy.

In addition, the brain learns from mistakes, if taught how, of course, even if the mistake is trying to solve an addition, collapsing a multi-million dollar company or mislead the recipient of an email, parses the string of events held, going about our steps and seeks to correct mistakes by learning from them (Roediger III, and Finn, 2010).

And once the brain learns something, will enjoy it and that will cause pleasure or reward immediate as possible, it will to do it again and again and again. This is how persons develop the skill or talent, the continued development of an activity, which will make a super specialized neural network (Forget, Buiatti and Dehaene, 2009). But remember that the geniuses in any area not done in a day, the real experts need many years.

My idea of education see it as try to install a software on any gadget, if the software does not match the system requirements, it is likely that this may not work properly, this has happened to educational models prevailing as it has been said at many educational forums. I think that formal education has pushed their applications regardless of what the system itself can do. Above all, has not taken into account that the system itself is regulated and is able to improve any program.

It is therefore in this sense that the software can not be used in the same way in all alike, every brain is different connections, some more specialized than others (Haier, 2009), but if you want all the same opportunities , you should look at that as an advantage, and then create a flexible software. As well as creating applications for various devices, versions 1, 2, N and N +1 ... Why not create flexible educational proposals?, Especially taking into account the culture, technological advances and innovations. In less than a decade we have moved from laptops to tablets and books to read hypertext. Culture evolves, brain evolves; why is education so boring?.

If you want to create an application of this magnitude, then I think I should ask the question: what is the goal of this application?. It certainly is not the speech that was sold to my generation: if you go to school will be a successful professional and you can make money and be better than your parents. Evolutionarily each new generation will be better than their ancestors (Fox, 2011).

What do we wish at the end of so many years of education?, Do we wish everyone thinking exactly the same?, Well, if you look at successful people, it seems a famous is anyone who dares to break the mold, and all admire him or her for doing things that nobody else can not do, a baseball player, a painter, a musician, a computer whiz or business ... all of them went beyond and against the system.

Then school needs to be creative and diversify. Each educational system is good for a limited group of people that fit the same, but there's a group that does not, and they need another program (Barber and Mourshed, 2007).

Formal education can call them stupid or odd, in a sense they are, but there are examples which show an extraordinary talent that was misunderstood. This is because creativity is an important ingredient in education (Robinson, 2006).

And be creative applies to use  tools, specially talking  about the current  technological age and the worldwide commitment to the use of tablets and Smartphone, but we can not forget the economic and cultural differences. What is the advantage of these tools? They are intuitive. Does not take much to learn to use and each generation of devices are based on brain function, and I think here can mention only some of its features:

They are based on visual processing, are increasingly attractive, sharper images, sound better, more friendly, and do not need a course of 40 hours to use a tablet, as soon as you open the box,  and it jumps almost saying, use me, let's work and learn!.

They are visuopropioceptives, where I put my finger I have what I want, they are lightweight and do not I have to get home to work, technically they in in my pocket... I carry it everywhere, just like any brain, goes everywhere with me, and also have very good ability to memory.

The advantage of technological tools moreover, it's adding the fact  you no longer dependent on a special platform to teach, the most commonly used, Facebook is great for teaching on line and now has built Skype; Google +  allows the use of multiple cameras for video conferences, it have enough room for internet use while you are giving a class ... if education of the future will use more and more often these items it will be excited, but at the same time, it can be a  bet IF think about use  only gadgets and it would be closing the door to creativity and only turning  the current coin.

First, we must think about the economic and language barrier, that is why gadgets can not be considered as the only options, and it makes sense to use the tools that each brain has at hand from the culture, and thus will be more creative, successful and adapted. more experiences, more neural networks. Simple!.

So, we can not forget the environment, because that is where decisions are made, they learn ethical systems (Blanchette and Richards, 2010), is the civilization where the brain has evolved, and is ultimately who we want to teach (Dehaene, 2009).

And now here we come: what to teach?. I am convinced that it is possible to teach anything with the right strategy, from quantum physics to how to get to the moon or being the best driver of the world. Education should not only bet on science, or formal education, the brain learns from everywhere, learn how to break security systems, or  the law, IF it is assumed that this is not learned in school, how is that someone manages to construct an algorithm for something so complex?, because the brain is much more intelligent than the school has believed.

Like learning math, that persons  think is one of the  more complex learning so far, with  a special language, and it has been able to create a specific space in the brain (Dehaene, 1999), the brain can reconnect existing networks and to continue learning, and creating and modifying them. It is able to create a triangular circle, or a colorful painting in black and white. It is creative and likes to be. There is nothing better than when someone call us the best at something, anything, from the best runner, even the best in physics, or the best craftsman. That makes us feel good!.

I think the goal of education should be to help each one to find for that which every one is good, the younger that goal is reached, the better value is the talent and will be more helpful to society.

Accept that there are other talents and tell to each child: YES, YOU CAN!, I hope it can be the way to school in the future, even when the system itself can have flawed. Finally accept that not everyone can learn the same way, it will open doors to children that every day work hard trying to adapt their skills to the demands of school (Fisher, 2010).

Finally, if we see how  other species and children learn before going to school, open our eyes to accept that learning is enjoyable, and that the more is seen as a game, is better accepted (Tullis, 2011). Hence it is explained why videogames can capture children minds, but if we look closely, they are teaching things that do matter for the school.

For example, the relationship visuospatial, visuo motor process for reading and writing, teaching strategies, metacognitive processes, and I can easily go on and on ...

The school of the future should recognize that the first point is to understand the brain, which provides its services for everything and, it will find a cure for brain diseases for future generations, it will reorganize the world economy or, it will let me see a movie from the comfort of my home, with just one click

And of course, no everyone can be famous actors or musicians, but if you enjoy doing what is being done, that is natural and then it lets exploit the full potential of each person, would not be worth it to educate?.

Alma Dzib Goodin

If you would like to know more about my writing you can visit my web site:
http://www.almadzib.com

Image 3D: Juan Conde Tovany

REFERENCES

Barber, M. and Mourshed, M. (2007) How the world’s best performance school system come out on top. McKinsey & Company. USA.

Blanchette, I. and Richards, A. (2010) The influence of affect o higher level cognition: A review of research on interpretation, judgment, decision making and reasoning. Cognition & Emotion. 24 (4) 561-595.

Carboni Román, A., Del Rio Grande, D., Capilla, A., Maestú, F. y  Ortíz, T. (2006) Bases neurobiológicas de las dificultades de aprendizaje. Rev Neurol. 42 (Supl 2) S171-S175.

Cook, G. (2010) The brain and the written word. Scientific American Mind. 21 (1) 62-65.

Dehaene, S. (1999) The number sense: how mind creates mathematics. Oxford University Press. USA.

Dehaene, S. (2009) Reading in the brain: The science and evolution of a human invention. Viking Adult: Penguin Group. USA.

Dehaene, S., Nakamura, K., Jobert, A., Kuroki, C., Ogawa, S. and Cohen, L. (2009) Why do children make mirror errors in reading? Neural correlates of mirror invariance in the visual word form area. Neuroimage. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.09.024

Dzib Goodin, A (2011c) How do we learn?.  Disponible en red: http://education50.com/blog/black-list-of-colors/how-do-we-learn.

Dzib Goodin, A. (2011a) The search for talent: the Holy Grial disponible en red: http://talkingaboutneurocognitionandlearning.blogspot.com/.

Dzib Goodin, A. (2011b) Brain differences: the black hole of formal education. Disponible en red: http://talkingaboutneurocognitionandlearning.blogspot.com/2011/09/brain-differences-black-hole-of-formal.html.

Fisher, B. (2010) A sensory fix for problems in school. Scientific American Mind. 21 (1) 32-37.

Forget, J., Buiatti, M. and Dehaene, S. (2009) Temporal integration in visual word recognition. Journal of cognitive neuroscience. 1 (2) 1-15.

Fox, D. (2011) The limits of intelligence. Scientific American. 305 (1) 36- 43.

Gage, FH. (2007) Brain, repair yourself. En Floyd  E, Bloom. The best of the brain from Scientif American: Mind matter and tomorrow’s brain. Dana Press. US.

Haier, R. (2009) What does a smart brain look like?. Scientific American Mind. 20 (6) 26-33.

Hartshorne, J. (2009) Why don’t babies talk like adults? Scientific American Mind. 20 (5) 59 – 61.

http://www.learningwithoutfrontiers.com/

Robinson, K. (2006) TED: Schools and creativity. Disponible en red: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPB-41q97zg&context=C3d21048ADOEgsToPDskLALkSRPqGf5rRgHmuJPYd2

Roediger III, HL. and Finn, B. (2010) The pluses of getting wrong.  Scientific American Mind. 21 (1) 38-41.

Tullis, P. (2011) Preeschool tests take time away from play and learning. Scientific American Mind. 22 (6) 26-29.

World Economic Forum (2011) Latin American economies still lag behind in leveraging ICT despite making progress, according to new global technology report. Disponible en red: http://www.weforum.org/news/latin-american-economies-still-lag-behind-leveraging-ict-despite-making-progress-according-new.

Brain programming

There is nothing more fascinating to me than hearing my husband and his colleagues  when they talk about programming problems. The programming language allows any device capable of responding to such code, to do so fabulous things that make us buying them, looking at them or playing for hours and hours with them, virtually we become addicted to them.

A simple task, as accepting a click on a button or the touch on a tab, involves long chains of operations that allow  to the device to have contact with the user, to do this, developers build more sophisticated sequential chains, linked in logical commands that tell the system what to do, when to do it and what information to show if the user hasn't done something correctly. That is what advertisers call intelligent devices.

Those talks delights me because I can imagine the amount of logical sequences that our brain made from the first moment when it’s build only  by  two cells to the last second when that it is disconnected. Apparently simple tasks, as open your eyes every morning, would involve thousands of lines of code, because they require to tell to the system what muscles are used, patterns of opening, the recognition if eyes are closed, because if they are open obviously cannot have a task that involves opening them, and I know that this sounds so stupid, but motor diseases allow us to recognize that this sequence should be recognized. That task has been attributed to the cerebellum together with the Corpus Callosum, but the script must be written.

As we have two eyes, they must be opened in coordination, and once opened, they will recognize the light, shapes, and sent signals to begin making daily decisions.

If you have observed the decision-making, Bayesian systems and schemes, please add to all this programming language and then you can imagine the thousands of connections that makes the brain every second. Even if this is the  only process, we can say Henry Markram is going to spend years and years building a brain and I hope he can succeed before he died; but the real challenge is not to build sequences, the problem is that these sequences should be adapted to respond to the environment, so are open constantly evolving systems.

Those who only read about studies published in press and little neuroscientific, easily fall into the idea that there is a structure for each action. Ramón y Cajal studied almost every area of the brain, and even in those years, he found that the brain adapts to the needs. Maybe I am an enthusiast of neuro plasticity and in some decades from now, we will find that it is a mistake, but we learn in science and re learn all the time. As well as my friend Irina Pechonkina has  taught me, the true task is not learning, but unlearn to this adaptation. 

The programming tasks that involve making conscious the scripts needed to run a task, in cognition, this is called Metacognition, I explain it in a simple way: this is the ability to tell each small task and sequence to execute an action.

The brain must be set not only the relationship between neurons, but between molecules, genes, and bacterias, it must respond to an environment that does not change only by the climate, but by the type of toys that we use, the words we hear, culture and other circumstances surrounding a system that generates lines infinite sequences that allow us to do tasks that seem simple.

Current studies show that there is the DNA of the DNA, which leads me to remember those years that I worked hard to understand Wittgenstein theories, who spoke about a  language of the language, which called meta language, and when I could understand the concept, someone with an evil tone threw one book on my  table in which Wittgenstein explained the meta-meta language.

Do not think that I have lost the idea that gives rise to this writing, if we return the task of open your eyes in the morning, think that sometimes the eyes open slowly, because recognizing the amount of light in the room, know that it is time to get up, but and if there is a noise that produces a s tate of alert, your eyes will be opened and will seek the source of noise, sometimes open by carefully because we are lying down with the face on the pillow... that sometimes forgets to remove contact lenses, which sucks the moisture from the eye and open them is difficult than usual.

The idea is not to imagine all possible conditions, I am there are N minus 1, but if we think that the scripts are not always clear, as the original order was written, there are many circumstances which must be considered.

Sometimes, colleagues of my husband tell him that he wants to reinvent the wheel, but,in his quest for efficiency he can search  breaking programming commands and get away with it. I wonder if that would be making learning?, and if so, because we must tell everyone how and that he must learn, instead of allowing people to  suit their actions to the environment, because in the end, not always may apply learned sequences.

In this sense, children with neurodevelopmental disorders, teach us that recognize sequences that carry out for tasks and because they carry them out incorrectly, sometimes because they do not recognize the task, or part of the sequence is wrong, and ultimately learn that the goal is the objective, and not the repetition of the error.

I know that it is foolish to say that the brain functions like a computer, but so far, technology has taught devices in a better way, than  many schools have achieved with learners. I don't blame teachers, even curriculum designers by not leaving the box and innovate. In theory you learn from mistakes, but it seems that education, not yet recognized the mistake, so the system continues  sending  signals that something has gone wrong, but let's not forget that children have the right to learn, in their own way, because there is an evolutionary program created for this purpose.

Learning and evolution

When the idea of studying learning began to grow in my head I was sure it would be an easy task, the library had at least 100 aisles dedicated to different strategies, models, explanations, theories about how it should be taught. Education, teaching, or learning problems were kind of synonyms of learning.

After reading all the books, magazines were a good source of inspiration, but only created more notes into pages of my notebooks which ended quickly and I finally decided to look in the brain, it was the logical step, because it’s where learning is scanned, processed and stored. 

I believed it was going to be easy to find answers in this lump that all of us  carry all on our shoulders, and it seemed an easy journey, after all,  how much can fit in an average area of 1130 cm³?.

My trip was from structures with their latin names to the connectome, which is a map of the neural connections, and seeks to describe the brain structure, as well as the genome is more than just a juxtaposition of genes, the set of neural connections is much more than the sum of its individual components (Biswal, Mennes, Zuo, Gohel, Kelly Smith; Beckmann, Adelstein, Buckner, Colcombe et al., 2010).

Connections 

A great expert in this topic, Sebastian Seung (2012) explains  that the connectome contains millions of times more connections than the letters of the genome, and each one will be building specific connections, all those networks is the personal  connectome, which is created on 4 principles: reweightingthis means changes in the strength of the synapses; reconnection is the creation and elimination of synapses; rewiring that is the creation and elimination of neuronal branches and regeneration which is creation and elimination of neurons.

If neurons were all, it seemed logic that understanding learning should not take me more than 10 years, but as Dehaene (2011) figured out,  brain represents the reply of the slow evolution of species governed by the principle of the same natural selection that has been perfected over the years allowing the brain to optimize the way in which processes the huge flow of sensory information received to adapt the reactions of the body to a competitive and hostile environment.

If the key of learning is exclusively in the brain, then the idea of learning adapting to the environment was valid and I mistakenly arrived to propose that learning allowed this adaptation, I cannot deny the error because I published in different articles. I changed my mind when a biologist made me remember that other species adapt, including proteins as I explained in another entry on this blog (Dzib Goodin, 2012). Prions took away my sleep for a while.

So it was time to seek the evolutionary mechanisms. Finally we are the sum of the processes of changes and adaptations.

Years of change

Someone kindly suggested me to explore theBaldwin effect, also known as ontogenetic evolution which is a theory of the likely evolution process of learning, which was published for the first time in 1896. The theory proposes a mechanism for learning ability in general, based on the idea of selected descendants of a group can have greater capacity to learn new skills rather than simply the abilities granted by the genetic code which is relatively rigid.

The idea sounds very logical but theory has been controversial from the modern evolutionary synthesis, and it has not been easy to prove the occurrence of the phenomenon. Personally I'm going to start documenting my summer battles between weeds, slugs, and snails to keep my gardens healthy. 

The main limitation of the Baldwin effect from Hinton and Nowlan point of view (1984) is the fact this idea is only effective in spaces that would be difficult to find, very specific species to which it is possible to continue without an adaptive process of restructuring from the space. But for those biologists, who say that wilderness areas are well structured, the Baldwin effect is an important mechanism to allow adaptive processes within the body to greatly improve the space in which a species evolves.

This theory led me to find something else, and I returned to an old topic, Can you believe the evolution of brain processes has been best explained by theorists of artificial intelligence?.

Some researchers has the assumption that brain can adapt and learn from past experience, because the specific evolution is not only inherited behavior but adds inherited goals that are used to guide the learning under the orders of a genetic code that has two components in the species. The first component is a set of initial values to create a network of action which maps the sensory input to behavior, this is presented as a set of innate behaviors that are inherited from the parents (Stefano, Elman, and Parisi, 1994).

The example that comes to my mind is a newborn baby, who is beginning to recognize the environment, his initial reactions are sensory, as Piaget recognized from the last century. Some of these reactions begin to distinguish between the species, for example, reflexes are becoming more sophisticated, and some babies show signs of maturity, while others follow a different pattern of development.

The second component is a network of evaluation,  this focused action on the sensory input to a value scale that help to move from a bad to a good situation by changing its weight in the action of the network during the process and that the individuals maintain as learning goals (Stefano and Parisi 1994).

There is no a bigger pleasure than observing a baby who is in a dilemma. If he manages to control the motor actions and builds the network between look at an object and take it, how does he react when despite the same movements, but the object doesn’t move?. His first reaction is: hey, come to me, I am taking you!. Other babies will try it more than 5 times, while some observe the problem, and maybe one or two will try to solve the problem crying, explaining to the toy that mom will know soon about his rebelliousness and nobody plays with mom.

In this sense, it can be said that the evolution of neural networks contains information not only in genetic terms, but also a collection of behaviors developed by the ancestors and this can be understood as a culture(Dehaene, 2012, Conrad, 2004).

 

It is then that culture has a major role since the adaptations in the environment are not always determined by closed codes and therefore not can become stronger than those established by the selection (including the changes in the social environment). The best example of this is the language, since previously the specie was not dependent on the speech, until it begin to evolve the language skills, is so development processes that had not participated previously in the language can be selected object because of its effects on the acquisition of the language, resulting in the modification of older adaptations (Barret, 2012).

However, culture is not absorbed in the whole brain how explains Stanislas Dehaene (2004) in his theory of neuronal recycling, he says that cultural purchases can take place in a limited surface area bounded by the cerebral cortex. As an example, the author analyzes reading and arithmetic that have greater reproducibility in the neo cortex.

This idea has been explored in more than one research, for example in an article published by Conrad (2004) it presents a theory about the formation of the central nervous system based on the processing of information from the description of the molecular biological systems. He explains that the central nervous system consists of several types of unitary regions, of which there are many interchangeable replications.

Each region contains neurons whose power is determined by the enzymes that recognize the specific input patterns to that region specify by genes inherited or cultivated. Finally, the central nervous system has selection circuitry that put test and evaluation of different regions, determining control of the production of genes on the basis of such an assessment. 

At the same time, there are genes whose production is stimulated in a diffuse way in regions in which occur to transform other relevant regions of the same type. In this sense, the function of the molecules is the same in these new regions because the structure of the tissue and cell properties is the same. 

This makes possible a process of trial and error to learn mediated by the same mechanisms as the natural evolution, except that it is more efficient because the circuits of selection. Systems that operate on the previous basis are capable of performing any executable as a conventional computer, but with significant restrictions on the programming. Thus, these systems are also (structurally) simpler than more susceptible to learning and evolution and conventional information processing devices (Conrad, 2004; Changeux and Dehaene, 2000).

It seems during the evolution of the brain the properties of its tissues development are subject to evolutionary change from the effects on the phenotypes of the brain. This can be initiated by the changes in systems development (for example, through mutation), changes in the environment in which they develop (culture, environment), or both (Barret, 2012). 

An idea of how happens this is provided by Fernando, Szathmary, and Husbands (2012) who claims  that Darwinian evolution can happen in the brain during, for example complex thought, or the development of language in children, though nothing further than the level of the synapse is subject to Darwinian evolution in the brain. Which confirms the affirmation of Seung: we are our connectome.

Evolutionarily, the advantage of having algorithms of replication occurring by natural selectionis not observable to the naked eye, compared to the instrumental learning models (Fernando and Szathmary 2010). In fact, the notion of the dynamics of replication in the brain remains controversial and the creation of neural networks is a cost process that depends on technological development, example of this is the Blue Brain Project.

Artificial neural networks

Thus, the technological advances to make possible the creation of neural networks that tries to simulate the biological capacity to adapt and learn from past experience that has the brain. 

However, even for experts in neural networks, the task of explaining the learning mechanisms have not been easy, because as explain Iriki and Taoka, (2012) brain evolution has three essential components, one developed by multisensory integration (sight, hearing, smelling, feeling) and transformation of coordinates for the control of movements in the living space is an essential function of the nervous system (what is known as ecological niche). But this neural enhancement is not an isolated event, since it allowed the brain to move processing to the summary of information, through the implementation and reuse of the existing principles of information processing space that adapted to the subjection of mental functions and which ultimately led to the development of the language with which it was possible to communicate locations or spaces (which resulted in a cognitive niche). This was also useful handling of the image of the body in space, which became essential for the handling of tools, giving as a result the acceleration of interactive links between cognitive, neural bases cognitive and gave way to the third niche which is building.

Just in case here sounded a simple explanation, complex that a baby may formulate coordinated words, you must know how to use the tongue, move it in a coordinated manner, and learn to control the air, when it manages to dominate the difference between a sound and reaching a word to take the race to perfect this ability. I personally really enjoy these attempts, babies range from simple ma, pa, aba sounds to words: mom, wad, water. Once they have established that, begin to use the tools and parents are scared when they see the child with the Ipad or the cell phone in their possession, nothing more fun to do than using a pencil, or a touch screen. When parents learn to relax, and children send their first text message, or read their first book, tools have sense. Hence to describe the world.

This explains that a modified human environment exerts pressure on future generations to adapt to it, perhaps through the acquisition of new resources that have to adapt to the different organs, with which is possible to explain plasticity induced epigenetically (this term refers to the study of non-genetic factors involved in the development of an organism), including the development of mechanisms of learning involved in such processes. In this way, the additional genomic information can be transmitted between generations through mutual interactions between neuronal, ecological niches and cognitive domains. This scenario locates the brain as part of a comprehensive ecosystem in evolution (Iriki and Taoka, 2012).

It is so arises the neuroevolucion as a field of study, which seeks the creation of artificial neural networks (ANN) through evolutionary algorithms, and sometimes has focused its efforts on static neural networks that cannot change its function during lifetime, since these are the easiest to replicate (Miikkulainen, Feasly, Hohnson, Karpov, Rajagopalan, Rawal and Tansey, 2012; Gauci and Stanley, 2010).

However, a serious problem with the evolution of adaptive systems is that learning to learn is very misleading, as describe Risi, Hughes and Stanley (2010), because a principle is easier to improve physical condition without the ability to learn, evolve by that is not based on the heuristic adaptation. This is learning a stiff task with no greater decision making, which is a model away from reality. 

In their study, the authors find as a conclusion that novelty search has the potential to foster the emergence of adaptive behavior in reward based learning tasks, which opens up a new direction for research in the evolution of neural networks of plastic, which makes it more interesting and easy to learn adaptive behaviors that had been difficult to observe in human models.

But is Henry Markram, who has a good idea about this, he says brain has led billions of years evolve and has many rules, so the challenge of the neuroevolucion is to describe them carefully using mathematical laws and if it is possible to achieve that, the challenge will then be to build a realistic model of the brain (Kushner, 2012).

Brain and school

Although it sounds like a foolish, learning process has a long way, developing its own rules and the school as an institution should not ignore, but does it. The result is not only unhappily educated children, but jobless adults. But, there is no perfect educational system, even the brain has established laws, it modifies them generation after generation, trying to find a biological balance.

Of course, it’s possible to expect a programming expert to design an application that connects through an interface with a single click, so we could learn anything, even those for which we are not physically fit, as in the The Matrix movie, but while that happens, it is worth putting the brain in the classroom and understands its mechanisms. 

It is not my idea that teachers know neuroscience, that is not the goal, but at least I would like to explain to teachers when they  see a child with learning problems they can see him as a problem of education, since  the brain has adapted and survived on the face of the Earth much more better than any curriculum has done so. 

Part of that evolution implies as studies indicate, the brain changes all the time, and in this sense, if a child is not capable of running a task today, far from tag it, should think that under the correct strategies, he or she will do it, with their own pace, accuracy and specificity, different than others, after all, there is nothing more impressive being unique different and special.

The success of the brain is such that it has been able to look to infinity and beyond, the Moon was not its limit, right now is exploring Mars, has done its utmost, has grown, invented, fantasized and made possible what was thought impossible, in a 1130 cm³average space^., imagine now that they will be able to make many with a common goal: an effective teaching

 

Alma Dzib Goodin

If you would like to know more about my writing, you can visit my web site,
http://www.almadzib.com/

REFERENCES

Ackley D., and Littman, M. (1991) Interactions between learning and evolution. In Artificial life II, SFI studies in the sciences of complexity. Vol X edited by CG Langton, C Taylor, JD Farmer & S, Rasmussen. Addison –Wesley. United States

Barret, HC. (2012) A hierarchical model of the evolution of brain specializations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America. 19 (Supl 1). 10733- 10740.

Biswal BB, Mennes M, Zuo XN, Gohel S, Kelly C, Smith, SM, Beckmann, CF, Adelstein, JS, Buckner RL, Colcombe S, et al (2010) Toward discovery science of human brain function. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107 (10) 4734-4740 

Conrad, M. (2004) Evolutionary learning circuits. Journal of theoretical Biology. 46 (1) 167-188.

Dehaene, S. (2004) Evolution of human cortical circuits for Reading and arithmetic: the neuronal recycling hypothesis. In S. Dehaene, J. R. Duhamel, M. Hauser & G. Rizzolatti (Eds.), From monkey brain to human brain (2004). Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

Dehaene, S. (2011) The number sense: How the mind creates mathematics. Oxford University Press. USA.

Dzib Goodin, A (2012) Learning how we learn. Available at: http://talkingaboutneurocognitionandlearning.blogspot.com/2012/05/learning-how-we-learn.html

Fernando, C., and Szathmáry, E. (2010) Natural selection in the brain. In B., Glatzeder, V. Goel,  and A. Muller (Eds) Towards a theory of thinking: building blocks for a conceptual framework. Springer. Germany.

Fernando, C., Szathmáry, F., and Husbands, P. (2012) Selectionist and evolutionary approaches to brain function. A critical appraisal. Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience. 6 (Art. 24). Disponible en http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3337445/pdf/fncom-06-00024.pdf.

Gauci, J., and  Stanley, K.O. (2010) Autonomous evolution of topographic regularities in artificial neural networks. Neural Computation 22(7)  1860-1898.

Hinton, GE., and Nowlan, SJ. (1987) How learning can guide evolution. Complex Systems. 1. 495-502.

Iriki, A., and Taoka, M. (2012) Triadic (ecological, neural, cognitive) niche construction: a scenario of human brain evolution extrapolating tool use and language from the control of reaching actions. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Biological Science. 367. 10-23.

James Mark Baldwin. A New Factor in Evolution. American Naturalist 30, (1896): 441-451, 536-553. Disponible en http://www.brocku.ca/MeadProject/Baldwin/Baldwin_1896_h.html

Krushner, D. (2011) The man who builds brains. The Brain, Discovery Magazine. Disponible en red: http://discovermagazine.com/2009/dec/05-discover-interview-the-man-who-builds-brains

Miikkulainen, R., Feasly, E., Hohnson, L. Karpov, I., Rajagopalan, P., Rawal, A., and Tansey, W. (2012) Multiagent learning through neuroevolution. Advances in Computational Intelligence. 7311. 24-46.

Nolfi, S., and Domenico Parisi (1994). Good teaching inputs do not correspond to desired responses in ecological neural networks. Neural Processing Letters 1 no. 2 (11/94) pp. 1-4.

Nolfi, S., Elman, J., and Domenico Parisi (1994). Learning and evolution in neural networks. Adaptive Behavior 2 (1994): 5-28.

Risi, S., Hughes, CE., y O Stanley, K. (2010) Evolving plastic neural networks with novelty search. Adaptative Behavior. 18 (6) 470-491.

 Seung, HS. (2012) Connectome: How the Brain's Wiring Makes Us Who We Are. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcout.

Memory and language

Alma Dzib Goodin

When we talk about memory, in general is associated with the past and memories, however, memory has a lot to do with language, because while we structure a phrase, many temporal associations are carried out either at present, past or future. I don't think is necessary explaining too much this aspect, since everybody suffers with   verbal conjugation at the first years of formal education.

And this is because the brain is constantly influenced by spatial and temporal patterns across of all the senses (Hawkins and Blakeslee, 2004), and then we say, of course, I had read that!, or it tastes like ... and ate it at....

During a conversation, is important to pay attention if you are talking in present tense, past or future, since this depends on the structure and meaning of the sentence. Of course, this is not knowledge that a newborn uses from day 1, it's one of the many tasks to be learned over time, related with brain maturation, environmental demands and verbal skills, some of them imposed by genetics.

Then, how can a brain work with multitasks?. It does this primarily by electrical impulses that travel through the synaptic connections, that are fired every 5 milliseconds, which work  parallelizing tasks, I mean, it does many things at once and at different levels, it performs tasks consciously and others unconsciously and also pay attention to the environment and the details (Hawkins and Blakeslee, 2004; Glöckner and Witteman, 2009).

But if focus at the language, the maximum achievement of the neocortex is the grouping of ideas, which can occur in prospective, this is, think ahead. During a conversation, we can predict what the speaker will say or do, this is an important process not only for language, but when we are driving a car, or watching a movie, which is an aspect of memory (Brewer and Marsh, 2010).

And of course, it's not possible ignore the great speed with which it is possible to remember something when the stimulation and the conditions are right. This is called reaction time in laboratory experiments, but that is pure fun when we play table games that require a unique quick response, which of course is a process that requires an active memory and familiarity of stimuli (Brewer and Gimbel, 2011).

But I guess, you reader   know your strengths in aspects of memory. Despite what teachers say that we must remember everything they say, our brain has something else in mind (that is literally). And while some people have better visual memory, and can remember what they saw or read just once and remember the name of the author of the book or article they read, there are some others who remember much better if the stimuli are auditory, and they learn to read loud to retrieve information better. There are also those who remember motor tasks and they are able to remember things when they do a movement. And I can not forget to mention my deep admiration for those who can recognize flavors, or the aroma of fine wine or a good meal.

Tasks that seem simple become complex when we try to explain them, for example, the recognition of faces is a complex but essential aspect in life. This process begins in the first days of life; it depends on the maturity of the oculomotor muscles and provides assurance that the caregiver is always the same. But it’s not the only one, because the sense of smell provides protection while babies develop the ability to focus objects. Thus, little by little they are making a complex network of processes that, with no doubt, help  to let us to know that we talk to someone we  know.

So, How do you remember a face?, Is it remembered or recognized?, this will be  another topic, that I will take as a  excuse to write again, but the fact is that  process is complicated: it starts with the rapid identification of the face, if it has similar racial characteristics, this can be a first  kind of identification, if not, you will have to considerate many details: the color of eyes, its location, shape, distance between them, the characteristics of each one and then the shape of the face, color, contour, form hair, color of the eyebrows, lips, cheekbones (Ewing, Pellicano and Rhodes, 2010), thus intersect other details such as whether the person is attractive, if we recognize that person and then, maybe we will try to find a  name in the library of memory, making a comparison  between face, name and a location where that person have seen  before.... and all that will be done in millisecond,

Of course, sometimes the process is not accurate, and the identification finishes with no an idea who is speaking with us. And even in that case, you can try some  clues as: if the other person knows or not my name?, the topic of conversation?, If I talk about this then I know this place, other clues can be the tone of voice, familiarity ... the system continues the search until it can  finds a positive recognition ... but you don't have to feel shamed if all the process fails, it may be easier to recognize the voice, or other aspects, such as recognizing the other person car, bag, shoes? ... each person is inclined to recognize objects in the environment in a distinctive manner.

In general, though not exclusively, men are capable of distinguishing details between cars, a Porsche and a Lamborghini are not equal, a Prius and Acura are not similar at all, and Who can confuse a beetle and an MDX?. Personally, I only know that cars have wheels and need gasoline, sometimes.

But vision is not always the main form of recognition. I used to feel worry  the first few times I waited for him at the airport, for who is now my husband, I was not able to make a mental image of his face. I only remember he had blue eyes and red hair. So I just could wait for someone with these features, but it was a challenge. The only consolation was that maybe he could recognize me, and when that happened, his voice did not let me any doubt, he was the right person.

Of course, once the recognition is done, the face has a name ... the vision is related to language when is trying to tie a memory. When everything matches, it's not necessary more searching at the data banks, all features are tied, but the issue is more complex than it seems, because although all that is accomplished in a few seconds, the search for the information needs of different brain areas and all information is concentrated in the hippocampus (Ewing, Pellicano and Rhodes, 2010).

If a task as simple and everyday as face recognition takes so much work, just enough to imagine the process of recognition of words, tense, voice tones, volume, modulation and content during a conversation.

Starting from the idea that thought is private and language is public, and then speak is making public the private. (In so many years, I can not remember from whom I learned this in my first years at university). However, both processes are completely different. But this  is conceivable under the multi-tasking system, because while we feel good or bad with  the external temperature, we plan activities for the next few hours or the next day, make a to do list, we feel hunger, we make mental notes of what to say on the next business meeting, we try to remember if we fed the cat and locked  the closet door or if we turn off the light ... the tasks can be endless, but, language only accepts the execution of a letter at a time, to form a word that is part of a sentence, to form an idea, and is able to link with the following (Weimer and Palermo, 1974).

We remember  what it was said, what is being said and what we are going to say,  or we can predict the next sentence, in studies  of laboratory, researchers try to see  separate processes, but in everyday life, they  are seemingly inseparable.

And all this has been learned in daily interaction, even before a first word can be said, and when babies start practicing, of course they make verbal mistakes, because their memory is not consolidated yet. But nobody cares about these failed attempts; adults encourage toddler to try it again, and again.

Different brain areas are used depending the kind of speech, for example, if we are talking about colors, there is an isolated portion of the brain that needs to be involved, but if we are trying to do a voice recognition, or shapes, other areas must work together, because all processes are separated, and then re grouped into the brain, but yet it's not possible to understand how this is possible.

That's why learning in children, can not be based only in isolated memorization and meaningless, specially because there is a specific area where all information must be joined and summarized to give sense to the world. But on the other hand, remembering can be   too inconvenienced because when an area of the brain is over specialized, it means another area is compressed, and this can be the case of talented or gifted children for whom the neocortex is the raw material in exchange for neglecting the social skills (Herbert, 2005).

The clearest case of this are  people with a diagnosis of Savant Syndrome, whom are able to remember very little details of what captures their attention, but sometimes with an IQ less than 50 (Winner, 1998).

Remembering then, depends on the attention, of environmental stimulation and the hippocampal ability to recognize tasks (Brewer and Gimbel, 2011). Does it seem complex?, Well, if you  try to explain it using only electrical impulses, bio chemicals, neural connections and a little knowledge of neurophysiology, if it is, but it's an activity that every brain does every  day, every second each day of our lives ...

Alma Dzib Goodin 

If you would like to know more about my writing you can visit my web site:
http://www.almadzib.com

References

Brewer, G. and Marsh, RL. (2010) On the role of episodic future simulation in encoding of prospective memories. Cognitive Neuroscience. 1 (2) 81-88.

Brewer, JB. and Gimbel, SI. (2011) Reaction time, memory strength, and fMRI activity during memory retrieval: Hippocampus and default network are differentially responsive during recollection of familiarity judgments. Cognitive Neuroscience. 2 (1) 19- 26.

Ewing, L., Rhodes, G. and Pellicano, E. (2010) Have you got the look? Gaze direction affects judgment of facial attractiveness. Visual cognition. 18 (3) 321-330.

Glöckner, A. and Witteman, C.  (2009) Beyond dual- processes model: A categorization of processes underlying intuitive judgment and decision making. Thinking and reasoning. 16 (1) 1-25.

Hawkins, J., and Blakeslee, S. (2004) On intelligence. Times Books. USA.

Herbert, M. (2005) Large brains in autism: the challenge or pervasive abnormality. The Neuroscientist. 11 (5) 417-440.

Molinaro, N., Conrad, M., Barber, H. and Carreiras, M. (2010) On the Functional Nature of the N400: Contrasting effect related to visual word recognition and contextual semantic integration. Cognitive Neuroscience. 1 (1) 1-7.

Pendarvis, E., Howley, A., & Howley, C. (1990) The abilities of gifted children. Prentice Hall. USA.

Weimer, W. and Palermo, DS. (1974) Cognition and the symbolic processes. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. USA.

Winner, E. (1998) Uncommon Talents: Gifted Children, Prodigies and Savants. Scientific American Presents. 32-37.

3D Image: Juan Conde Tovany