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Genes, Networks, Behavior, and Beyond:
Thinking Backwards About the Brain and Education

A Starting Question: Why Do People Behave the Way They Do?

Innate characteristics?
Individual experiences (including culture)?
Free will?
Other unknown (unknowable?) forces?
The Neuronal Network As a Way to Make the Question Approachable

The network as the material substrate of behavior
Are networks influenced by genes?
Are networks influenced by individual experience?
Is behavior predictable if the network is known?
Learning To Think Backwards About Science and the Brain

Getting it "less wrong" rather than "right"
Questioning the concept of "predictability" as a measure of success
Challenging the concept of the brain as an input/output device
Thinking Backwards about Behavior:
Implications for Education

Experience AND genes AND ...
Appreciating behavior as cause and as result
Recognizing unpredictability as the characteristic
of an active, exploratory agent
Considering education as an active rather than a passive process
The information revolution as the right tool

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