by MONIQUE LANGLEY-FREEMAN, GRACE LANGTON AND DR TOM BRUNZELL, BERRY STREET EDUCATION MODEL (BSEM), BERRY STREET VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA
AUG 18, 2023

Including:

- Explicit Teaching for Young People
- The Adult Lens on Behaviour
- Practical Strategies for Escalated Moments

Here are some excerpts to wet your appetite...

"As educators, we have become increasingly concerned that helpful metaphors are being presented in schools literally, in ways that deprive them of their nuance and exclude critical contemporary research and understandings that highlight the complexity of the brain. Rather than a compartmentalised, three-part layer-cake, recent neurological models present the brain as far more interconnected, adaptive and integrated with our bodies, relationships and environments than previously thought."

"Increasingly, it seems that many areas of the brain work together as opposed to being layered and segmented. Further, integrated brain structures are influenced by sensorimotor capacities (the body), and our bodies are embedded in, and influenced by, our broader biological, psychosocial and cultural environments (Kiverstein & Miller, 2015).

With each new discovery about the brain, there are more indications that thinking, feeling and neurobiological functions are far more integrated than previously thought. We seek to both future proof the language we use with students and honour the complexity of an evolving scientific field.

As educators, we frequently adapt heuristic models from a range of fields, and we argue that, as non-neuroscientists, we need to continually attempt to go back to the depths of expert research and emergent knowledge. When working with complexity, we believe it is an imperative part of our role that we attempt to understand and explore surrounding critiques and debates, so that we may speak about the brain and stress with nuance and humility."

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