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You
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CREATING THE FUTURE
Perspectives on Educational Change
Compiled and Edited by Dee Dickinson EDUCATION IN THE DECADES AHEAD
Marian Cleeves Diamond, Ph.D.
EACH ONE -- TEACH ONE is my theme for the coming years. Having just become the Acting Director of the Lawrence Hall of Science here in Berkeley, I want to introduce the concept that everyone can learn to be a teacher. One has to be accurate with the facts as a teacher, yet imaginative with creative ideas for new directions in the future. As we learn the facts, we can turn around and share with the next person so that "the association cortices" can create the new ideas.A child in kindergarten can learn to be a teacher. The expression on the face of the little ones when they are told they, too, can teach is priceless. They have to reconstruct their image of a teacher. Why spend the next twelve to fifteen years in only being taught? What one learns the first day of school can be shared not only with other schoolmates but with parents as well. Having learned about bones, one child in kindergarten taught his mother that bones are alive. The parent replied this was not so. The child came back to school to reconfirm what he had learned in class and then returned home to correct his parent's misconception. What a mode of education! Everyone benefits as everyone learns.
What is more important is that one learns that she or he has the capacity to learn at any age, not only in the classroom during school hours. Life could be a continual learning process as we gain new information and interweave it with the best of the old to improve upon daily conditions for everyone. The outer layers of the brain have the capacity to change positively as well as negatively at any age. As my ninety-five-year-old aunt used to say to me, "Who needs the negative?"
The more we learn about the structure and function of the brain and its potential, the more tolerant we will become of our individual differences and the better able to recognize and accept our similarities. Rather than wonder why we don't understand each other, we can be amazed that we understand each other at all-brain cells are constantly changing with experience.
I hope that basic anatomy and physiology will become a part of the everyday curriculum. If children learned about the wonders of their bodies as healthy little people, they would learn to take care of themselves so that their full 100 years on this globe, and, perhaps, on others as well, could be more optimistic, healthy ones.
The yearly cost of health care in our society is in the billions of dollars, an inexcusable waste, which education could reduce. We could begin early, when the body is the child's world, before reaching out into knowledge about the surrounding environment. If taught to respect himself or herself at the beginning, to learn about the "house" in which she or he will spend a lifetime, then in turn the attitude toward others will be more wholesome and tolerant. There are reasons why such sayings as "know thyself" have been passed along for centuries.
I look forward to working in the Lawrence Berkeley Hall of Science because there is no grading there. Children and adults alike gain knowledge because they are curious. To retain curiosity for a lifetime could be a goal of all teachers, both young and old. At present, teaching first graders is a world apart from teaching tenth graders. The openness and the eagerness of the little ones in contrast to the complacency of many in the older group is truly remarkable. Countless numbers of the older young people have been turned off to the thrill of learning. To keep the excitement of learning and creativity alive at all ages is the ultimate challenge, giving life meaningful color.
It may sound strange in a short article on education to include what I think is the most important ingredient of human behavior, namely love. Why can't we teach the youngsters to love others as they love their families, as an example? Imagine what our daily lives would be like! Somehow in our highly technical world at times the warmth of human compassion seems to be overshadowed by cold efficiency. The exotic sciences of the future might benefit from ecstasies of love in the present.
About: Marian Cleeves Diamond
Also at the 1988 Education Summit Conference, Dr. Marian Diamond delivered the keynote, holding a real human brain in her hand as she spoke. The power of reinforcing teaching with vivid visual examples was never so clear!
Not only is she one of the world's great neuroscientists, but she is a compelling lecturer who knows how to bring information to life for her listeners. She loves teaching and she loves learning and discovery-prime attributes for any teacher who wishes her students to become lifelong learners.
Her book, Enriching Heredity, describes Dr. Diamond's lifework of ascertaining that the anatomy of the brain can be changed by the environment. Her studies show conclusively that positive, nurturing, stimulating environments that encourage interaction and response are the prime conditions for developing the more complex neural networks that appear to be the "hardware" of intelligence. Her work also indicates the ongoing influence of the environment, experience, learning, and emotions on neural equipment throughout life --for better or worse. In the light of her work, the ageless nature-nurture controversy becomes moot.
Dr. Diamond is professor of Anatomy at the University of California, Berkeley, and is a former Director of the Lawrence Hall of Science. She has also taught at Harvard, Cornell, and at universities in China, Australia, and Africa. She received the Outstanding Teaching Award and Distinguished Teacher's Award from the University of California, and is a member of the American Association of University Women Hall of Fame. In 1989-90, she received the CASE Award, California Professor of the Year, and National Gold Medalist, and she was made a member of the San Francisco Chronicle Hall of Fame.
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