Once I was in an education class where the teacher was telling us when you teach you are wiring the students brain. I asked him: isn’t learning also losing a connection in the brain? Say you want to learn to stop drinking. You have to lose the pathways that lead you you drink. So he said “yes” and I got a lot of “ahas” from the other students. But the teacher wasn’t going to mention that part.

For me, teaching and learning is asking a question, and then answering it. Yes, that is everything, its almost boring to say that. Maybe you like the learning stages “learning is synthesis and analysis” but actually, that is just as boring and unhelpful. I think the question answer model can be helpful. Education is coming up with a problem you see or that you want to shed light on; or seeing an opportunity for how you want to help with problems in the world. The next part is having the capacity, the energy, and the resources to answer the question or shed light on the problem. All human development comes from that process.

So we are told from on high that education happens in the brain. Well, if learning is wiring and unwiring the brain, both, it might as well be neither. Whats the difference? Learning could have nothing to do with the brain. At all. And all the arguments about learning-as-brain come down to the same basic problem that you know things that aren’t wires or connections or brain pathways. There are non-connections that are not just good, but necessary for a good life, like learning not to go down negative rumination pathways.

Just give your self a moment, where you ask a question. A free moment. And you are free to answer with your energy, capacity and resources, and you can see that learning is not the brain.