A Celebration of Neurons: An Educator's Guide to the Human Brain

by Robert Sylwester

Book Overview

Robert Sylwester offers educators an introduction to "the only mass of matter in the known universe that can contemplate itself," the human brain. We all know that the brain is where learning takes... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0871202433
• ISBN13: 9780871202437
• Release Date: July 1995
• Publisher: Association for Supervision & Curriculum Deve
• Length: 167 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A Celebration of New Research

If one part of the human body can be considered essential to the process of education, it would no doubt be the human brain. Everything we learn, everything we think, everything we believe, and even everything we are is, at least in a biological sense, located in these six pounds of folded organic tissue. Thus as educators, we are key facilitators in the development of this crucial body part and need to know as much as possible about it. To this end, Robert Sylwester has researched and written a key work: A Celebration of Neurons. In his own words, Sylwester wrote the book in order to provide "a functional understanding of these significant developments [in the cognitive sciences] to be able to comprehend the growing scientific and professional writing in this field; discuss, develop, and evaluate proposed educational applications; and effectively teach students about brain mechanisms and processes." In order to do this, Sylwester has researched well over 150 sources and concisely simplified and summarized them for easy understanding. The key difference between Celebration and other treatises on the cognitive sciences is in its direct application of its findings to educational theory, and to changes that can be made in order to better meet the educational needs of our students. After a brief introduction and rationalization of his work in chapter one, Sylwester focuses each of his subsequent chapters upon six key issues in the cognitive sciences today. Chapter two illustrates the brain's construction on a cellular and systemic level. Here we see the organization of the brain and its basic physical and chemical functions. Chapter three explores the way in which the brain interacts with the world outside the skull through the senses and the motor system. Both of these chapters have little to offer in concrete suggestions for teaching, being intended instead to provide the information necessary to understand the later parts of the book.In chapter four, Sylwester explains how the brain focuses on specific sensory information. Most intriguing is his focus on the role that emotion plays in making these critical decisions. While traditional educational theory has up to this point advocated the division between emotional and rational content, the author instead suggests that it is better to acknowledge that emotion is an inseparable part of attention and cannot be ignored, but rather must be worked through. To this end, he provides six guidelines by which educators can accommodate this as well as two others to reflect the biochemical and physiological functions of focusing attention.Chapter five concerns itself with memory. After a brief introduction into the various types of memory, Sylwester explores the processes by which short-term information is either converted to long-term memories or forgotten. The most fascinating section of this chapter is the explanation of how memory is maintained and managed

Your Owner's Manual

If you have a brain, you need this book. This entertainingly informative approach to explaining the brain's care and mantainance is easy to understand and engrossing. It explains everything from how you dream to how you pick up a pencil off of the floor. Environment and diet are addressed as well as the growth process and some diseases. At times, I did have to set the book aside to contemplate what I was learning, but it was easy to digest (a process which is also outlined in the book).

A Celebration of Neurons, by Robert Sylwester,

Robert Sylwester's much overlooked book, A Celebration of Neurons, gives you a set of polished tools easily used in exploring the plumbing of your own brain. If you've ever, ever wondered how you create those amazing ideas you do, this book is a must. Sylwester draws on the outstanding research on brain neurochemistry, exploring different models, and leading us on an exhilarating tour of the pipes and fluids of our brains. And it is written in easy to understand language, yielding a schemata of the brain that is equal to anything Carl "cosmos" Sagan did in helping us image outer space....only here we take the deep dive into the bubbling fluids of our own crainiums. As I read it I could hear easily hear my own neurotransmitters firing, feel the delight of my dancing synapses, and feel a "hundred things" I had not dreamed of. A must read for anyone who thinks....and especially for educators, psychopests and others in the tinkering trades