Few graduate teaching programs offer courses in brain structure and function. That is unfortunate, because while neurophysiology and education would appear to be vastly different fields of endeavor, research on the brain has yielded results that can be directly applied in the teaching process (Caine & Caine, 1992).

One suspects most educators would welcome information explaining how to maximize the brain activity of their students to the exclusion of all potential distractions for purposes of creating a unified class focus. Being able to enlist the orientative, emotional and cognitive-associative faculties all at once could produce a virtually Utopian didactic atmosphere.

At face value such a goal might seem unreachable. Most teachers know that even if, like gifted comics, they could "get on a roll" from time to time - with students laughing, listening, participating and cooperating in an all for one, one for all quest for knowledge, such sublime moments could seldom be duplicated, let alone become commonplace. On the other hand, an open-minded glance inside the calcium and protein looking glass known as the human brain suggests this goal might well be attainable.

The dynamic by which the human brain orchestrates its various networks to come up with thought and action remains largely unknown. However enough is known about its component lobes, circuits and interactions to provide a fairly useful template for educators interested in maximizing student performance. To make things clear, the writer will use an arbitrary but reader-friendly term to describe this template...the staircase method. It signifies that in teaching to the brain the educator must climb symbolically a four step cerebral staircase representing the collective, functional minds of his students.

Brain Dynamics

Most theories and research designs on brain function tend to focus on evolutionary development. One of the seminal discoveries in that regard resulted from the work of MacLean (1970) and Luria (1973) who described the human brain as a "triune", ie. a structure with three distinctive evolutionary histories and three separare functions. They proposed that the first and most primitive component is the brain stem, from which sprouts an ascending circuit known as the "RAS" - or reticular activating system. The RAS functions as an alerting, orienting network, making the organism (in this case the student) aware of any changes or increases in the nature or intensity of any given stimulus. This network is activated when novel stimuli are presented, when tonality increases or decreases, or when combinations of new and familiar stimuli occur together. In effect, it is a message-conveyer telling the rest of the brain to be ready for something different, something threatening, something that requires a shift in strategy that just might need to be acted upon. In simpler terms it is a warning, imploring the mind to... "abandon your current state of lazy-habituation."

While the RAS is crucial to learning and survival it is obviously not enough. Being prepared to....do something... induces preparatory arousal but doesn't necessarily prompt a particular behavior. Fortunately the bottom-up organization of the brain seems to be proceed from the general to the specific.

That's where the next step on the staircase comes into play. It is known as the limbic system and it is situated in the middle portion of the brain. it facilitates recognition and emotional/motivational faculties so that global responses such as flight, aggression, sexual and appetiive behaviors and territorial defense reactions can ensue (Kabelik & Weiss 2006), (Derryberry & Tucker, 1992). Since the limbic system provides a greater level of behavioral specificity, and problem solving prowess it represents a higher level on the cerebral staircase. Yet it has limitations. For one thing, it is not very precise. While a high brain-body state of arousal guarantees that action will occur, people don't think, speak or comprehend very well in a high arousal state. Furthermore only in very limited circumstances do the behaviors emanating from this ring-like circuit invite social approval.

That brings us to the third step on the staircase, wherein lies the source of the higher mental faculties - the cerebral cortex. This is where increased behavioral specificity, labels, concepts, associations, abstractions, sound-symbol relationships, reading, writing and math skills are learned and consolidated. (Hasselmo, Anderson et al, 1992)

All things being equal one might presume education should target the cerebral cortex. Another presumption might led one to rule out the limbic system, especially since the typical teaching plan will (hopefully) not include lessons on fight, flight, eating, sex or territorial defense. Meanwhile targeting the RAS might seem unnecessary. Students know why they're in school. They are in the same building every day, going over the same general curriculum with the same group of teachers. Thus, the primarily cortical emphasis employed in most traditional classrooms would at face value, seem appropriate.

If the three brains functioned separately a cortical focus would be sufficient. It turns out they do not. While they might have emerged in different evolutionary epochs and to address different (pre-conversion) environmental circumstances their current pathways are highly integrated, reciprocal and inter-communicative (Ardila & Bernal, 2007). For example the RAS is modified by recognition and associative messages descending down from the limbic and cortical areas. Meanwhile the cortex modulates activity in the limbic system so that the "oomph" provided by its motivational circuits can be applied to language and cognition (Day 1968).

The holistic nature of the brain as typified by network integration implies a theory of learning which will be referred to here as brain swamping. The theory holds that the more brain circuits involved, the better will be the learner's motivation, perception, recognition and participation. More to the point, it seems within the realm of possibility that an effective teaching method can be derived from "brain swamp" theory.

Step Four on the Staircase

Prior to discussing this methods, a final factor that is critically important in the teaching process comes into play. While learning requires alertness, motivational impetus and cognitive-associative capcities, it requires something else as well. In order to learn a student must have a capacity for automaticity. This is a process by which some skills become so entrenched that they can be taken for granted, while at the same time serving as an anchor point in the acquisition of more advanced skills. An example would be in phonics. As sound-symbol relationships become automatic, they get pushed to the backburner of consciousness so that word reading and reading comprehension skills can improve unimpeded.

This fourth step on the staircase, providing automaticity, can be found in a computer-like structure in the back of the brain, known as the cerebellum (Raberger & Wimmer, 2002). It is large, has a simple cellular design and is structurally redundant - as any automatic device should be. Once learning engrams are entrenched they are stored in this implicit network. The engrams are hidden They do not intrude on the learning process but nonetheless provide a silent guide and backdrop to new learning. Interestingly, the cerebellum is designed primarily as a motor circuit, providing not fine motor but gross motor, balancing, movement and spatial computing anchor points. it enables the learner to take his body (and all necessary preludes to new learning) for granted so the focus can be on cognitive, fine motor, language and/or academic tasks. In simpler terms, the cerebellum keeps as from having to learn on the fly.

From Theory to Practice

That brief discussion will hopefully provide a brain-map, or as stated eariler, a hypothetical staircase indicating the location and purpose of each of the the four steps. The following section offers suggestions on how to apply the brain swamping method. The process is not very complicated, therefore neither is the instructor's task.

RAS Priming:

Since this circuit responds to novelty, changes in intensity and combinations of new and old ideas it can be primed by.....

A. The teacher's varying voice tone, waxing variously melodramatic, poignant, loud, joyful and indignant in presenting classroom material.(Conversely a monotone voice will inhibit the RAS and turn off the "alert button."

B. Beginning classes with questions instead of facts. Interrogatory inputs really prime the RAS by virtue of their iresolution. Ironically the entire brain becomes more active when it does not know something than when it does.

C. Discussing conparisons of new and old ideas and events, such as historical trends now and in the past, new cultural trends and fads, heroes and villains, and whether they were indeed heroes or villains.

D. Discussing similarities and differences with regard to events and trends in history, literature, science and other courses amenable to discussion.

E. Humor - lampooning, caricatures in cartoon drawing...."Your assignment is to draw a relevant cartoon of Mussolini regarding his infuence in pre-war European affairs - be as funny and irreverent as you wish!"

Limbic Priming - with a caveat:

Most teachers would not want emotions to run high in the classroom. However help comes through the research of Askew & Field (2007) who demonstrated that emotion and motivation-inducing arousal can be vicarious. In that context the teacher could...

A. Ask students to submit empathic opinions and compositions regarding the times, places and people under study.. For example....Your asignment is.write not about what happened, but about what a person in those circumstances might have thought and felt - as if you were transcribing an ancient personal journal.

B. Having students consider the implications, benefits and dangers inherent in scientific discoveries, historical events and cultural trends in biology, medicine, math, lierature and other cultural domains.

C. Presenting scenarios in class whereby the pros and cons of historical outcomes (real and hypothetical) can be pondered. For example...What would have happened in the Middle East if, after WW II Israel had not been provided with a homeland by the Allied Nations?

Cortical Priming:

This is probably the easiest to implement because associations automatically lead to concepts in the cerebral cortex. It purports to turn questions into answers, to resolve semantic conflict and to label things not initially understandable.

A. Students are asked to ponder and determine the validity of various ideas and theories. For example....Your assignment will be to think about and write a composition with evidence to support or refute the idea that all men are created equal. I will be more interested in your explanations of why (your evidence) than your opinion in itself.

B. Multiple Associations. For example asking students to pick five or ten different words to describe a character in Shakespeare's MacBeth.

C. Students (in vocabulary exercise) are asked to find five other words with a meaning similar to "wonderful." In addiiton to spelling bees, vocabulary bees could be held, requiring students to find synonyms and words similar to the prompt word.

Cerebellar Priming:

Since the cerebellum operates by synthesizing response systems - much like a computer program that compresses an overloaded email box by simplifying and re-categorizing the messages, it is prepared to fit large, complex data formats into narrow and compact data forms. It is a kind of information-funnel that aims and targets data and motor behavior into a central focus. Therefore..

A. Any form of verbal, perceptual, anditory or motoric synthesizing activities will give this circuit a "work out" and enhance the trend toward automaticity. For example:

B. Asking students to pick (only) one word to describe the events of 911.

C. Asking students to opine on the question: Of all the heroes of the American Revolution, pick the three most important and tell why or...Of all the American presidents throughout history which created the greatest amount of change during his term in office - tell why.

Note: These exercises could be used in warm-up fashion or woven into the curriculum. In either case the activation of these behaviors will tend to create a total concentration/swamping effect that is compatible with the functions of the human brain.