We shall comment here two recently published studies of the brain in scientific circles in London and USA. The first says that the digital revolution reshapes the brain works, and second, that puberty disrupts the learning process, then proposing a drug to cure the "problem".
Study 1: Digital revolution reshapes the brain works
news online, the study of University College London is certainly very questionable. How much of this type of research, a number of factors seem not have been contemplated. Who are the 100 volunteer subjects who had their brains investigated? What is the origin, life history, cultural background, social context in which they are? This sample would have a sufficient number of conclusions as assertive / definitive?
Well, actually, we are spreading an information circulated on the Internet, which tends to simplify the contents. The search might not have engaged in such basic mistakes ... But even if it has, it does touch on issues that deserve attention.
One concerns the ease with which young people troll the Internet at information search, jumping from one site to another without devoting much time to the topics covered. According to the English scholars, that would be indicative of a remodeling of the brain that already affects the next generation, a conclusion that eventually leads many to assume that this would cause a certain aversion to books in general, and especially those with more pages.
Nor would need a search along these lines to conclude that major changes in the way of being in the world are underway, many of them obviously determined by the new technologies of communication that we have become increasingly voracious consumers. That this also affects our brain circuits is hardly a novelty. And the youngest ever read fewer texts or seek shorter, leaving behind classics of literature, is also a constant concern for parents, educators, and even been approached recently by journalist Daniel Piza on your blog
The problem is to bundle all this and hastily draw cause and effect simplistic.
things first.
is a fact that children deal with new tools of technology with increasing ease. There is no family in which there is at least one that explains with ease the operation of a new electronic gadget. Phone to the laptop, throw themselves to unravel its mechanisms, without fear of daring. Ventured to say that the absence of fear, and for that matter, the power to learn to deal with these sets are related to situations in which they are to use them, which are, in most cases, successful.
Firstly, adults give children a role of prominence in the use of this technology. The learning relationship appears often reversed. It teaches the child that has his say valued by adults. This partnership was defined as a positive influence on the relationship she establishes with this knowledge, making them closer and closer it.
Another relevant factor is that the child has achieved its objectives more immediately in those situations, even though their previous knowledge is biased. Take, for example, the use of computers. While no area of \u200b\u200breading and writing, the child makes use of what you already know and also other resources to achieve what they want. Very easily, learn how to access desired programs on the Internet and at the hour of typing, you see in print an appropriate remedy. The application of knowledge leads her to watch videos, play new and different games, to watch TV shows, competitions and communicate with others. Things she could not be depended just reading and writing in another medium that was not digital.
Perhaps we are facing a phenomenon, still in formation, which may have consequences for children's education: the tendency of the young develop more quickly and substantially reduce your computer literacy over others such as the school. In this perspective, perhaps the most important is not to assess whether computer use is or is not remodeling the brain. Is important to note that the situations in which literacy is just so its use because it requires certain attitudes, skills and abilities required or not favorable in other contexts. Wanting a student beginner, within the school context, read a book x pages, without this having a meaning for him, there is something that requires a priori. This will be the result of a job well done at the school, which takes into account even the capabilities of the learners developed in other contexts.
For educators, is the dilemma: how to make teaching methods match a little more to the rhythm that is being imposed at present, but without losing the density needed to train people with critical thinking, able to deal justly with the bombardment of information?
Study 2: Puberty hinders learning, and scientists propose drug to cure the "problem"
Also in this study there is much to be questioned in terms of procedures: the cellular mechanism that, according to the scientists' conclusion, would affect the learning capacity of adolescents so far only been demonstrated in mice teens which would have been subject to "learning activities".
Mickey Mouse and, more recently, the friendly mouse movie Ratatouille, Remy, are indeed essential reference for understanding human behavior ... perhaps because, like the fables have been humanized precisely by their creators.
Well, in the case of this research, we have the flip side of this: adolescents treated like rodents! What would have been learning activities offered to laboratory mice? What is the concept that these scientists have to learn about the act? Maybe they have assessed the ability to discover the mechanism of operation of a mousetrap ...
But, according to the newspaper (Folha de S. Paulo, 03/19/2010), these American scholars "knew" that "puberty affects the ability to learn," undermining the linguistic memory, which leads to the conclusion that only 10/12 years until you can teach the basics to children. Maybe something like opening a can of biscuits to get a cheese, or rather a cookie ...
How to solve the "problem"? Simple: with an extra dose of the hormone linked to stress and motivation (THP), applied in the hippocampus of livestock. Thus, our teenagers return to wild "and learn" and everyone could celebrate, happy parents, teachers and, of course, the pharmaceutical industry!
But for relief, even partially, the very scientist who heads the research disagrees with the idea that "puberty is a 'problem' that needs to be treated." We can then breathe a sigh of relief? His discovery was just a joke laboratory that, at most, will cause protests angered some animal protection society, concerned with the ethics of rodents? Unfortunately not: the investigation continues
"It would be a good idea to treat children or adolescents in general with a drug like that, but some children have more difficulty learning, and in them the learning deficit of puberty is worse. The ideal would be to develop a drug more selective. " You see, children with "learning difficulties" for the scientist, inevitably worsen in adolescence.
There is no escape.
be fair, however, with the researcher. Asked about the possibility of a new drug to be as controversial as Ritalin - drug prescribed unscrupulous obedience today, she criticized the conduct of his colleagues, warning that the outcome of their investigation does not apply to normal teenagers ...
As we said, there are countless questions that highlight the validity of such research. What are the parameters to define normality? What is the situation of learning that guinea pigs, human or not, are "subject" during the testings? Sociocultural context, life history and many other variables that determine particular ways of apprehending knowledge once again being discarded in favor of a supposed scientific neutrality. The researchers also forget is that they evaluate their test subjects from the parameters, ideologies, ways of thinking historically and socially determined, ethical and political positions. There is, therefore, neutrality, especially when the subject is human learning, with all its richness and complexity.
Both studies lead us to the topic and the ways in which contemporary society has increasingly undermined this complexity.
One of the signs that we are not knowing how to respond to the new ways children and adolescents engage in learning situations is precisely the proliferation of diagnostic deficit disorder of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder - ADHD, already discussed here on the site (see sections on myth or reality and reflection, professional tab).
Will the "loss of attention span" that characterizes this clinical condition may be, at present, considered a "neurological disease"? If the brain of younger people is already being affected by the new social demands is hard to say - will require much more research, more consistent. But there's no denying that, as previously mentioned, early on, children are being asked to participate in social situations dynamic, full of sounds, images, speeches presented simultaneously. It's almost impossible not to respond to these stimuli!
Both surveys, with all its ambiguities and inconsistencies, can then serve as a warning: we must pay attention to the fact that there is this absurd number of deviant children and adolescent patients to specialists and even many educators have propagated. Before
distribute diagnostics has led to the medicalization of childhood and adolescence (cf. http://blogdaroselysayao.blog.uol.com.br/), with drugs like Ritalin being prescribed unabashedly and without a careful evaluation and consideration on risks that drive, pay attention to the role that we, the older we played nowadays.
What we have done, inside and outside of school, so that different situations that involve learning are significant for young people? Environment and care that we have offered them? We've been able to accompany them and support them in their troubles and issues particular to each stage of the process of maturation?
In the case of adolescents, as propagated seizures can not be seen as pathological and therefore should not be "cured" - without them, something significant is lost, and not just for boys and girls. For us adults as well. Search medicines to make them obedient also mean an impoverishment of our possibilities of transformation. Who will point out our faults, to question our actions, charging the authenticity of our actions and words? Plus, with whom we will confront us?
All of us, families, educators, therapists need of rich interaction with teenagers and confrontational defiant, intransigent, we need to signal this willingness to clash with the authority to represent, without losing sight of empathy and open field that can contribute to genuinely for the reinvention of the future.
Claudia Perrotta and Lucia Masini
http://www.ifono.com.br/
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