Why Do I Need a Teacher When I’ve Got Google

them how to take risks, try new solutions and innovate? 5
    If we are going to learn anything from Einstein and his assertion that ‘We can’t solve the problems by using the same thinking we used when we created them’, then the more you are comfortable with rollercoaster divergent thinking and, better still, the more you can actively develop it in your classroom, the better our chances of survival. Yes, you have to teach them the hoop-jumping skills to get them through exams (less so maybe in areas like Humanities and English where there does seem to be more scope for divergent thinking) but don’t let the hoop take over. In doing so, ensure you are genuinely preparing them for the task ahead of them where the only way of doing something (oil, cars, baths, beef, coal, holidays abroad, cotton, newspapers, mobile phones, air conditioning, chips, stocks and shares, having two or more children, living in villages, central heating, wooden furniture … ) may be the thing that finishes us all off.

Chapter 8
It’s the brain, stupid
    President Clinton, the last time he was elected, famously put a sign on his fridge door (or on his election headquarters depending on what you read 1 ). It was designed to remind him what he had to focus on in order to win. Along with ‘Change v more of the same’ and ‘Don’t forget healthcare’ it said, ‘The economy stupid’. 2 The slogan became something of a catchphrase appearing on bumper stickers and fridge magnets and in newspaper columns ever since. For the fridge door in your staffroom I would like to suggest something similar, however this one says:
    It’s the brain, stupid!
    Everything that takes place in your classroom from the achievements of your favourite student to the misbehaviour of your bottom set nemesis to the apathy or otherwise of the ones in the middle, is down to some form of electro-chemical combustion taking place between ears – yours and theirs. The more you know about that process, the more you can make sure you are doing the right thing to influence it for the better.
    If you were a doctor or a nurse, the general public would expect you to keep up to date with medical research, breakthroughs and innovations in your area. Surely, it should be the same for teachers. You have the same moral, professional and ethical obligations to keep up to date with learning science – so much of which relates to brain science – as the medical profession has. And yes, I know teaching isn’t about life and death. It’s more important than that.
    Two years before Bill Clinton was sticking slogans on his fridge door, his rival in that 1992 election was making the following declaration:
    To enhance public awareness of the benefits to be derived from brain research, the Congress, by House Joint Resolution 174, has designated the decade beginning January 1, 1990, as the ‘Decade of the Brain’and has authorized and requested the President to issue a proclamation in observance of this occasion.
    Now, therefore, I, George Bush, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim the decade beginning January 1, 1990, as the Decade of the Brain. I call upon all public officials and the people of the United States to observe that decade with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities.
    (Presidential Proclamation 6158)
    As I pointed out in my foreword to Dr Andrew Curran’s book for the Independent Thinking Series,
The Little Book of Big Stuff About the Brain
, this was how George Bush Snr opened the Decade of the Brain and this was how George Bush Jnr opened the 2007 APEC Summit: ‘Mr. Prime Minister. Thank you for being such a fine host for the OPEC summit’.
    The 1990s saw a tremendous surge in our understanding of the human brain with various claims such as ‘90% of what we know about the brain we’ve learned in the last ten years or so’ and, even though we’ve come a long way from sticking ice picks through our eye sockets as a cure for schizophrenia (effective in some but not all cases (El-Hai 2005)), we still know so little in the big scale of things. And even what we do know can change as new discoveries outdate older assertions. (For more on this have a look at the next chapter where the OECD and I debunk a few neuromyths.)
    But can we apply what we now know in a classroom setting? That is one of the most relevant questions of twenty-first century education and one that was vexing the minds of various experts from around the world at the