People have started to talk about neuroeducation, but what is it? Is it just another example of the fashion of adding the prefix neuro- to the social sciences, like neuroethics, neuropolitics, neuromarketing and neurolaw?
Those who remain sceptical consider it a mistake to link neuroscience with education. However, for some authors, neuroscience can provide useful knowledge about the brain, and they see neuroeducation as a young field of study with many possibilities.
From its birth in the decade of the brain (1990), neuroeducation has been understood as an interdisciplinary field that studies developmental learning processes in the human brain. It is one of the last social neurosciences to be born. It has the progressive aim of improving learning-teaching methodologies by applying the results of neuroscientific research.
Neuroscientific research already plays an important role in education. Taking into account the neural bases of human learning, neuroeducation looks not only for theoretical knowledge but also for practical implications, such as new teaching methodologies, and it reviews classical assumptions about learning and studies disorders of learning. Neuroeducation studies offer possibilities such as early detection of special learning needs or even monitoring and comparing different teaching methodologies implemented in school.
Although neuroeducation primarily focuses on disorders of learning, especially in mathematics and language (dyscalculia and dyslexia), can it be extended to other areas? If neuroscience can shed light on the development of ethics in the brain, can such explorations form the basis of a new form of neuroeducation, moral neuroeducation, which studies the learning or development of ethics?
Before introducing a new term (moral neuroeducation), prudence and critical discussion are needed. First, what would the goal of moral neuroeducation be? Should it consider moral disorders in the brain or just immoral behaviours? Second, neuroscientific knowledge is used in neuroeducation to help design practices that allow more efficient teaching to better develop students’ intellectual potentials throughout their training process. Should this be the goal also of moral neuroeducation? Should we strive for greater efficiency in teaching ethics? If so, what is the ethical competence we should try to develop in students?
It seems that we still need a critical and philosophical approach to the promising union of neuroscience and moral education. In my postdoctoral project, Neuroethical Bases for Moral Neuroeducation, I will contribute to developing such an approach.
My postdoctoral research at the Centre for Research Ethics and Bioethics (CRB) is linked to a research project funded by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness in Spain. That project is entitled, Moral Neuroeducation for Applied Ethics [FFI2016-76753-C2-2-P], and is led by Domingo García-Marzá.
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