Abstract:
The purpose of this paper is twofold. Firstly we wish to examine the extent to which neuroscience as a discipline has become incorporated into the public agenda as a result of increased awareness regarding the care and education of newborns through to the age of about three. This research is relatively recent, and is contrasted with the prevailing wisdom of some fifteen years ago. We then wish to explore the links between education and neuroscience, pointing out where there are regions that are theoretically undernourished. Secondly, we wish to examine some of the neuroscience literature written for educators, illustrating that in many instances such accounts lack in substantive content, and that important neuroscientific concepts are misrepresented. The reasons for this are briefly explored. We also wish to give some consideration to what neuroscientific accounts written for educators should look like. These issues are prefaced as a work in progress to the much broader research aim of exploring notions of learning in educational contexts and in neural systems, ultimately with a view to establishing communication between these two paradigms.