A pedagogical appointment with neuroscience: emergence of neuroeducation and overcoming neuromyth

Abstract

For over a century, neuroscience has stood as a consolidated scientific discipline in its modern conception, thanks to Nobel Prize laureate in Medicine Santiago Ramón y Cajal, who left us significant advances in the development—and especially the functioning—of the brain. If we consider it as a traditional doctrine of knowledge, its origins go much further back, to ancient Greek times, exalted and passed down by the forefathers of science. It was only at the end of the last century that this discipline broke into and impacted the field of education—rightfully and fortunately. Neuroeducation was coined by Professor Gerhard Preiss in 1988 as the application of neuroscience to education, meant to enrich rather than oppose it. With it came the phenomenon known as neuromyths—or myths about the brain—a term introduced by neurosurgeon Alan Crockard in 1986 and later reinforced in the educational field by Professor John T. Bruner in 1997. This article traces the evolution and impact of each of these disciplines, as well as the unfortunate phenomenon of neuromyths—and, of course, their overcoming as threats to sound teaching practices.