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ESRC, le « Economic and Social Research Council », est une organisation indépendante créée par le Royal charter et financé par le “Department for business, innovation and skills” du gouvernement britannique. C’est ce centre qui est chargé de financer la recherche dans les domaines sociaux et économiques.

Il prend en charge, entre autres choses, les thèmes de la connaissance, des technologies et de l’apprentissage. C’est dans ce cadre qu’un rapport sur les neurosciences et l’éducation a été publié :

TLRP-ESRC (2008). Neuroscience and Education: Issues and opportunities. A commentary of  the Teaching and Learning Research Programme.

Ce texte faite suite à un rapport commandité aux scientifiques Uta Frith et Susan-Jane Bakemore en 1999 et achevé en 2000 :

Blakemore,S-J., Frith,U. (2000). The implications of recent developments in neuroscience for research on teaching and learning. Report compiled for the ESRC Teaching and Learning Research Programme.

Les deux textes se composent d’une partie “programmatique” qui décrit les relations qui existent entre les neurosciences et l’éducation et les scénarios futurs de collaboration possible (et souhaitée), et d’une partie “d’état de l’art” en neurosciences qui concerne les contenus de la recherche qui peuvent trouver une application pratique dans le domaine de l’éducation.

Etudions ces deux thèmes plus en détail :

1) TLRP-ESRC (2008). Neuroscience and Education: Issues and opportunities. A commentary of  the Teaching and Learning Research Programme.

Le texte est le résultat d’une série de séminaires portant sur les neurosciences et l’éducation (Collaborative Frameworks in neuroscience and education) conduites par TLRP-ESRC jusqu’à 2006.

L’auteur est Paul Howard-Jones (Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol) “on behalf of TLRP Seminar Series core team, with contributions from Andrew Pollard, Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, Peter Rogers, Usha Goswami, Brian Butterworth, Eric Taylor, Aaron Williamon, John Morton and Liane Kaufmann”.

“Improving education is a national priority for the UK. In this Commentary, we explore the scope for our emerging knowledge of the working of the brain to contribute to better educational outcomes, especially for children. This publication unites two of the Economic and Social Research Council’s principal concerns. One is for education. The Teaching and Learning Research Programme is the ESRC’s largest research initiative. It is dedicated to performing excellent research that leads to better education for people at all stages of life. From its inception, it has promoted discussion of the link between education and neuroscience.

In this publication, the latest in a series of TLRP Commentaries, researchers supported by the TLRP point to a range of issues at the junction between neuroscience and education. As they say, the brain is the principal organ involved in learning. It is natural that our increased knowledge of its working can inform educational practice. But as they also make clear, attempts to introduce neuroscience approaches into the classroom have to date been of mixed quality. Often they have relied too little upon research evidence and too much on impressive-sounding but scientifically questionable formulae. “

L’auteur réclame donc un dialogue plus étroit soit établi entre les neurosciences et le monde de l’éducation afin de produire un langage commun et donc accéder à une compréhension partagée de l’apprentissage ; afin également d’augmenter le nombre des recherches sciences cognitives qui concernent l’apprentissage, de développer des lieux de discussion qui permettraient d’identifier les connaissances utilisables, les neuromythes et l’orientation des futures recherches.

Dans la préface l’auteur indique brièvement les trois étapes nécessaires à ce que l’éventualité d’un parcours conjoint entre l’éducation et les neurosciences gagne en intérêt (au niveau européen):

“in 2000, Professor Uta Frith and her colleague Dr Sarah-Jayne Blakemore completed a commission by the Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP) to review neuroscientific findings that might be of relevance to educators. This review attacked a number of ‘neuromyths’, including those concerning critical periods for educational development, and highlighted new areas of potential interest to educators such as the role of innate mathematical abilities, visual imagery, implicit processes, and sleep in learning. … In 1999, as the Blakemore and Frith report was being commissioned in the UK, the supranational project on ‘Learning Sciences and Brain Research’ was being launched by the Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The first phase of the project (1999-2002) brought together international researchers to review the potential implications of recent research findings in brain research for policy-makers, with a second phase (2002-2006) channelling its activities into three significant areas, Literacy, Numeracy and Lifelong Learning. This OECD project revealed the high level of international interest in developing a dialogue between neuroscience and education, as well as highlighting the diversity of approaches across the world7. In April 2005, the TLRP began its second initiative in this area, by commissioning the seminar series ‘Collaborative Frameworks in Neuroscience and Education’, upon which this commentary is based.”

Un élément central de la publication  réside dans la volonté de démasquer les mythologies (que nous pouvons appeler neuromythes) qui sont responsables des résultats pour l’instant contrastés de l’application des neurosciences à l’éducation.

In a recent survey of teachers, almost 90 per cent thought that a knowledge of the brain was important, or very important, in the design of educational programmes. Indeed, for at least two decades, educational programmes claiming to be ‘brain-based’ have been flourishing in the UK. Unfortunately, these programmes have usually been produced without the involvement of neuroscientific expertise, are rarely evaluated in their effectiveness and are often unscientific in their approach. Perhaps this is unsurprising since, although the central role of the brain in learning may appear self-evident, formal dialogue between neuroscience and education is a relatively new phenomenon. ” (p. 4)

Le texte passe en revue des “indications pédagogiques” et leur éventuel corrélat scientifique, ou neuromythe :

- Quand doit-on commencer à éduquer? Est-ce qu’il faut commencer le plus tôt possible? Les fondements scientifiques qui permettraient de répondre “oui” sont en réalité des neuromythes liés à l’idée selon laquelle la synaptogénèse et l’élimination des synapses non utilisées est un phénomène précoce. Si cela est vrai, il est également vrai que les deux phénomènes continuent, peut-être de manière moins importante, par la suite, et que les études sur ces phénomènes concernent surtout les primates. Une deuxième idée impliquée est celle de la période critique : lorsque celle-ci est dépassée, un certain apprentissage ne serait plus possible. Il s’agit en réalité de périodes sensibles, et elles concernent surtout la vision, la mémoire et le mouvement. La troisième idée en question est celle concernant le rôle positif que joue un environnement riche en ce qui concerne la synaptogénèse et l’apprentissage : des expériences conduites sur des rats montrent plutôt que des environnements appauvris ont un effet négatif, car les rats dont l’environnement est qualifié d’enrichi vivaient dans un environnement normal.

Si la période qui s’étend entre 0 et 3 ans est importante pour l’apprentissage, il y va de même pour l’adolescence : le cerveau se développe au cours de l’adolescence et dans les aires frontales et pariétales la sélection des neurones ne commence pas avant la puberté. C’est à la même période qu’on attribue la myelinisation et donc l’amélioration de la capacité de conduction du signal des neurones de ces aires ; myelinisation qui continue d’ailleurs à l’âge adulte, en améliorant la capacité de ces aires cérébrales à “communiquer” à distance avec une vitesse élevée.

Les facteurs qui améliorent le fonctionnement cérébral ne sont donc pas limités au nombre de neurones ou de synapses.

“As in the earliest years of life, a second wave of reorganisation of the brain is taking place during the teenage years. Research on adolescent brain development suggests that secondary and tertiary education are probably vital. The brain is still developing during the period: it is thus presumably adaptable, and needs to be moulded and shaped. ” (p.

“Although the changes are less radical than during childhood, the brain continues to change and develop through adulthood. With increasing age, of course, the brain does become less malleable, and we begin to lose neurons at an increasing rate, although the educational effects of this loss are still not well understood. However, there is also evidence that neurogenesis (the birth of new neurons) continues in at least one part of the brain in adulthood. This is in the hippocampus, an area with an important role in learning and memory. The brain’s continuing plasticity suggests that it is well designed for lifelong learning and adaptation to new situations and experiences, and such adaptation can even bring about significant changes in its structure“. (p. 9)

- dyslexie: “As our understanding improves and techniques are further developed, it may be possible to identify children at risk from dyslexia well before they begin school, allowing the earliest possible intervention. One promising technique is electroencephalography (EEG), which involves placing a net of electrodes on the scalp to detect and record the minute patterns of electrical activity produced by the brain. Because it is very non-invasive and child- friendly, it has already proved immensely useful in identifying the earliest stirrings of linguistic awareness“

- dyscalculie: “Insights into the causes of dyscalculia, which is thought to affect about 4-6 per cent of children in the UK, are beginning to emerge from the neuroscience of mathematical processing. In a neuroimaging study involving normal participants, activity was observed in areas of the brain involved in word association and language activity, the left frontal and angular gyri, when participants calculated answers exactly50. If the type of exact calculation we learn in school recruits areas of the brain associated with language, this suggests that the acquisition of formal mathematics relies on our ability to learn rules and procedures. However, when the same participants attempted to estimate answers, the role of a more ancient and innate ability to approximate was seen to be linked to bilateral activity in the intraparietal sulci. Even at six months, it seems, most of us can approximately differentiate between large numbers of items for ratios of between1:2 and 2:352 and it seems that we share this approximate number sense with other animals53. Such innate mathematical ability may have a critical role in ‘bootstrapping’ our capacity to formally grasp exact differences and procedures54,55. Dyscalculia has been linked to a deficit in these ‘premathematical’ abilities. A study56 of low birth-weight adolescents with numerical difficulties revealed less gray matter in an area of the intraparietal sulcus. Further research is needed to confirm the direction of cause and effect in such studies, but insights from brain imaging research are already inspiring interventions based on new notions of how we develop our mathematical ability, and some of these are showing promise“

- programmes d’apprentissage prétendument fondés sur le cerveau, mais qui ne le sont pas du tout : comme Brain Gym ou les programmes pour équilibrer le cerveau droit et celui gauche, ou encore préférences dans les styles d’apprentissage (visuel, acoustique, tactile).

“Since the 1990’s, an increasing number of educational programmes have claimed to have a ‘brain basis’. There are few examples of such programmes having been evaluated, and they often appear to have developed without neuroscientific scrutiny. Some of the ideas promoted by these programmes have become part of the educational culture in many schools. In the survey mentioned at the beginning of this commentary, about 30 per cent of teachers attending an INSET day had already heard of the commercial programme known as ‘Brain Gym’63. This programme promotes the idea that neural mechanisms can be influenced by specific physical exercises. The pseudo- scientific terms that are used to explain how this works, let alone the concepts they express, are unrecognisable within the domain of neuroscience. For example, there is a claim that, if children provide pressure on their ‘brain buttons’, they can help re-establish the brain organisation required for reading and writing64. ‘Brain buttons’ are described as indentations between the 1st and 2nd ribs directly under the collar bone to the right and left of the breastbone. Other exercises include the Cross-crawl, promoted on the basis of activating left/right, top/bottom and back/front areas of the brain simultaneously, and varieties of ‘Hook-up’ for calming and stress- relieving effects. ” …

“For example, as in Brain Gym, there is a still an emphasis on the desirability of balance between the left and right part of the brain. In Smith65, we are reminded ‘Remember that the synergy generated in creating new pathways between left and right results in all-round improvement’. In fact, except in the rare case of brains which have been lesioned, pathways exist permanently between the left and right hemispheres, most notably via the corpus callosum. At present, there is no scientific evidence to suggest we can voluntarily create new ones. ” …

“Some believe that presenting material in a way that suits an individual’s preferred learning style can improve their learning. (Note that it could also be argued that the reverse might also be helpful, as a remedial intervention to improve processing associated with the other learning styles.) However, there is a considerable scarcity of quality research to support the value of identifying learning styles66. A recent psychological investigation of the VAK principle tested recall of information presented in the three different styles. This study showed no benefit from having material presented in one’s preferred learning style, concluding that attempts to focus on learning styles were ‘wasted effort’. Of course, this does not detract from the general value for all learners when teachers present learning materials using a full range of forms and different media. Such an approach can engage the learner and support their learning processes in many different ways, but the existing research does not support labelling children in terms of a particular learning style. ” (pp. 15-16)

Cette considération sur la nécessité d’approfondir les programmes qui fonctionnenet, mais aussi d’aller à la recherche d’explications scientifiques (comment et pourquoi cela fonctionne) semble très raisonnable:

“Many ideas about the brain in education may be at odds with present scientific understanding, but perhaps not all of them should be dismissed entirely. For example, short sessions of Brain Gym exercise have been shown to improve response times69, and such strategies, if they are effective, may work because exercise can improve alertness. If they do help learning, the basis for this effect should be researched further, to support improved understanding and practice. Teachers are not always satisfied with knowing that an approach appears to be working. They would also like to know why and how. Educators also care about the validity of scientific claims used to promote an idea70 while a greater understanding of underlying processes also contributes to more effective evaluation. One thing is clear. Education has already invested an immense amount of time and money in ‘brain-based’ ideas that were never based on any recognisable scientific understanding of the brain. Many of these ideas remain untested and others are being revealed as ineffective. In the future, an improved dialogue between neuroscience and education will be critical in supporting the development, application and evaluation of educational programmes based on a sound scientific understanding of the brain.”

Par exemple:

“Neurofeedback refers to the monitoring of one’s own brain activity with a view to influencing it. Recent work investigating electroencephalographic (EEG) neurofeedback has found it helpful in improving the performance ability of music students. Conservatoire students received training using neurofeedback and improvements in their musical performance were highly correlated with their ability to progressively influence neural signals associated with attention and relaxation. Similar results have been found for dancers. This is an interesting and unusual example of a technique being borrowed from neuroscience to provide direct improvements for learners. Despite its apparent success, these interventions are not built around any particular cognitive model and the processes involved are not completely understood. However, the helpfulness of EEG feedback in raising levels of attention indicates its potential benefit in a broad variety of educational areas.“

Enfin, une partie très utile du livre illustre la manière dont le fonctionnement du cerveau est étudié : notamment les techniques de neuroimagérie. On y met en évidence le fait qu’en dépit du terme “image” les neuroimages ne permettent pas de voir le cerveau en fonction, sinon indirectement, et que cette vision indirecte est de fait une interprétation fondée sur un modèle de corrélation entre processus biologiques et fonctions cognitives. En voici un exemple assez clair, en particulier de la manière dont ces plans s’articulent:

“Working memory is one example of how neuroscience is helping to ‘concretise’ psychological concepts. Working memory refers to our capacity to temporarily hold a limited set of information in our attention when we are processing it. This limitation is the reason why we prefer to write down a telephone number a few digits at a time rather than be told the whole number and then start writing. The average upper limit of this type of memory is about seven chunks of information, but there are individual differences in this limit that are linked to differences in educational achievement72. However, understanding pupils’ dependency upon working memory becomes more ‘real’ when brain activities associated with mathematical training are visible. In one recent study, adults learning long multiplication demonstrated a shift, with practice, in the areas of the brain they were using to complete their calculations73. At first, considerable demand upon working memory was demonstrated by activity in the left inferior frontal gyrus, as students explicitly and formally followed the processes they were learning. After practice, this activity reduced and was replaced by greater activity in the left angular gyrus, as processes became more automatic. The images generated by this study provide a helpful and very visual illustration of how the types of mental resource required to solve a problem change with practice. They resonate well with classroom observations of the difficulties faced by many learners when engaging with new problems. In such situations, it can be particularly helpful for pupils to show their working since, apart from many other advantages, external representations can help offload some of these heavy initial demands upon working memory. ” (p. 17)

Pour conclure:

“Of course, brain scans cannot give rise directly to lesson plans. There is a need for bridging studies that interpret scientific results in terms of possible interventions, and evaluation of these interventions in suitable learning contexts. One example of such research comes from Innsbruck, where brain imaging and educational interventions have both been used to understand the basis of dyscalculia and methods to remediate it.

There is also a growing need for collaborations between neuroscience, psychology and education that embrace insights and understanding from each perspective, and that involve educators and scientists working together at each stage. Such collaborations are not straightforward, since the philosophies of education and natural science are very different – with various forms of psychology, in a sense, bridging the two. Educational research, with its roots in social science, places strong emphasis upon the importance of social context and the interpretation of meaning. Natural science, on the other hand, is more concerned with controlled experimental testing of hypotheses and the development of generalisable cause-effect mechanisms. This suggests that collaborative research projects may need to extend the cognitive neuroscience model of brain->mind->behaviour.

We are still at an early stage in our understanding of the brain. Most of what we know arises from scientific experimentation, in environments that differ greatly from everyday learning contexts. Another limitation in applying such studies is their focus upon individual cognitive factors rather than the complex abilities required in everyday or academic settings. And, even in respect of these basic cognitive factors, many recent findings have served to emphasise how much more there is to know. The techniques being used to explore the brain are developing rapidly, but many important limitations still exist here too. EEG can provide accurate timing information but provides little impression of where in the brain a particular activity is occurring. In contrast, fMRI provides some accurate idea of the location of brain activity, but is less effective when it comes to identifying when it occurs, especially on a cognitive time scale of milliseconds. Also, techniques such as fMRI are often not considered suitable for routine studies using children, so most fMRI investigations only involve adult participants. The neuroimaging literature tells us more about the adult brain than about that of a developing child. Given these and other limitations, considerable caution needs to be applied when attempting to transfer concepts between neuroscience and education. Such attempts need to be well-informed by expertise from within both fields. ” (pp. 22-23)

2) Blakemore,S-J., Frith,U. (2000). The implications of recent developments in neuroscience for research on teaching and learning. Report compiled for the ESRC Teaching and Learning Research Programme.

“This report was compiled for the ESRC Teaching and Learning Research Programme (www.ex.ac.uk/ESRC-TLRP/). The objective of the report was to identify a research agenda in the field as it cuts across neuroscience, psychology and education.”

Les deux axes clé de la publication sont sans doute l’avancement des neurosciences et leur capacité à fournir des réponses aux questions posées par le monde de l’éducation :

“Neuroscience research is increasingly shedding light on our understanding of the structure and function of the brain. Recent advances in technology have enabled neuroscientists to discover more about how the human brain functions than ever before. Techniques such as functional neuroimaging, which measures activity in the brain as humans perform a certain task, and can be performed using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) (see appendix 1), have significantly pushed forward our knowledge of the brain and mind. This report is a selective account of developmental and cognitive neuroscience studies that are informative about learning and might be of relevance to research on teaching and learning. In this report we use the word ‘learning’ to encompass all kinds of learning. When we refer to neuroscience, we include all kinds of study of the brain. That is, we include molecular and cellular neuroscience although we will discuss cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology studies in more detail. By cognition we mean anything that refers to the ‘mental domain’ which includes emotions. When we refer to cognition or mind, we do not mean to separate them from the brain. We believe that the brain and mind have to be explained together. For posing questions and considering facts we will use a framework that combines environmental, biological, cognitive and behavioural levels of description (Morton and Frith, 1995; see below).”

Les deux domaines identifiés par les auteurs comme ayant le plus grand impacte (potentiel) sur l’éducation sont les neurosciences et la génétique, plus que la psychologie cognitive qui sert de raccord, de pont, entre les domaines et les langages - reconnus comme encore éloignés - des neurosciences et de l’éducation:

“At present, some of the most urgent questions in education may be best answered by methods from experimental psychology. However, with more active discussion between neuroscientists and educators, there is potential for totally new questions to emerge that so far could not be answered and hence were never asked. ”

Genetics: “It is likely that genes play a significant role in learning and learning disabilities, and this is the kind of question beginning to be investigated by genetics groups world-wide. Thinking about the educational implications of genetics research will be a hugely important task for the future. The jump from gene to behaviour is much greater than the jump from brain to behaviour. The work to be done in terms of bringing neuroscience into contact with education will facilitate the work that will eventually have to be done to bring insights from genetics to bear on teaching and learning. ” Common vocabulary: “The one-sided approach (can brain research be applied to classroom practice?) can lead to dangers. Therefore taking an interactionist approach (what do educationers need to know that can be informed from brain science?) is more appropriate. To this end, active and empirical collaboration between neuroscientists and educators would be necessary. Such collaboration will benefit from a concerted effort to find common ground. A forum in which neuroscientists and educationers discuss and distinguish their research questions and clarify terminology and methodological differences would be a crucial step. The goal of developing an interdisciplinary ‘science of learning’ cannot be usefully pursued by one or other of the disciplines taking the lead, but depends on each challenging the other with ideas and hypotheses to test and refine. For this task a mediator in needed.”

Le rôle de médiateur serait joué idéalement par la psychologie cognitive, qui s’occupe de “l’esprit” alors que les neurosciences s’occupent du cerveau, et l’éducation des comportements. Une chaine causale lie le cerveau à l’esprit (mind) et celui-ci au comportement, selon le modèle proposé par les deux scientifiques:

“cognitive psychology is tailor-made for this role. This is not to exclude developmental psychology, social science, education sociology, anthropology and evolutionary psychology, which all could be represented in an interdisciplinary forum. However, we believe that brain science can impact most readily on research on teaching and learning through cognitive psychology.”

Quel type de connaissances les neurosciences devraient ou pourraient fournir à l’éducation? Frith et Blakemore suggèrent de commencer par les connaissances contre-intuitives, comme celles concernant la plasticité cérébrale (et donc l’apprentissage des adultes ou la nécessité d’éduquer les enfants très petits parce que “plus plastiques”) et les apprentissages implicites (donc la capacité à apprendre “dans le dos” de l’éducation explicite):

“it might be more useful to ask where research on the brain can offer information about learning and cognition that is counter-intuitive to the educationer. Two areas that come to mind, and which will be discussed in more detail later in the report are implicit learning and plasticity in the adult brain. Briefly, research on implicit learning has shown that the brain processes information that is neither attended to nor noticed. This tendency of the brain to do things ‘behind one’s back’ is pervasive and might have repercussions on theories of teaching. Many different areas of neuroscience research have demonstrated that the adult brain is ‘plastic’ and capable of a remarkable amount of change and relocation of function, depending on how the brain is used. This research suggests that the brain is well set up for life-long learning and adaptation to the environment, and that rehabilitation is possible and worth investment. On the other hand, it suggests that there is no biological necessity to rush and put the start of teaching earlier and earlier. Rather, late starts might be reconsidered as perfectly in time with findings from brain research.“

Au niveau des contenus scientifiques, les deux auteurs prennent en considération 3 thèmes spécifiques : les premières années de l’apprentissage, l’apprentissage tout au long de la vie, les différences entre individus et les problèmes d’apprentissage.

- Early years learning: “educators often cite scientific research on brain development when arguing for particular educational practices. For example, there are suggestions that children should begin the study of languages, advanced mathematics, logic, and music as early as possible (Beck, 1996; U.S. Department of Education, 1996). Such arguments claim support from established findings in developmental neurobiology. However, many neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists believe that current questions about educational practice, for instance, questions about the optimal start of formal teaching, cannot yet be answered by neurobiology (Bruer, 1999). ” (p.10)

Le “mythe” de la synaptogénèse précoce et de sa relation avec l’apprentissage qui imposerait une éducation précoce est discuté comme suit :

“In summary, while it is true that pre-school children have brains that undergo substantial and rapid changes and are more flexible than adult brains, this increased flexibility remains throughout adolescence at least in some brain areas. … Most of what is known about brain development corresponds to the emergence of or changes in visual, movement and memory functions, which are acquired in almost any environment throughout the world at approximately the same age, well before children enter formal education. How synaptogenesis relates to later educational learning or to the acquisition of knowledge and skills such as reading, writing and numeracy is unknown. … Most neuroscientists now believe that critical periods are not rigid and inflexible. Rather, most interpret them as ’sensitive’ periods comprising subtle changes in the brain’s ability to be shaped and changed by experiences that occur over a lifetime. For some functions to develop normally, the animal must receive appropriate sensory input from the environment at some stage during development. However, this input tends to be very general in nature, including patterned visual stimuli, the ability to move and manipulate objects, noises, and speech sounds for humans. Such stimuli are available in almost all environments. Higher cognitive capacities, such as language, have several sensitive periods, many of which continue into adulthood, including second language learning. … Brain research findings and common sense in early childhood care go hand in hand: it is important that parents and teachers rapidly identify and, if possible, treat children’s sensory problems, such as visual and hearing difficulties, so that they can regain normal function. They also suggest that recovery can occur and that learning can still occur later in life. This may be a different kind of learning and may be facilitated by different kinds of teaching. Whether sensitive periods exist for culturally transmitted knowledge systems, such as those responsible for reading and arithmetic, is currently unknown. ” (p 12-13)

En ce qui concerne plus spécifiquement l’acquisition du langage et de la deuxième langue, on sait qu’après 12 mois on perd la capacité à distinguer les sons auxquels on n’a pas été exposé pendant cette période :

“Learning one’s own language initially requires categorising the sounds that make up language. New-born babies are able to distinguish between all speech sounds. Sound organisation is determined by the sounds in a baby’s environment in the first 12 months of life - by the end of their first year babies lose the ability to distinguish between sounds to which they are not exposed (Kuhl, 1998). There is evidence that learning the sounds of one’s own language begins in utero - even new-borns can distinguish between sentences spoken in their parents’ native language and sentences in another language, presumably on the basis of prenatal experience with maternal speech (Mehler et al., 1988). Again, it is likely that some dedicated neural mechanisms for processing speech are present in the human brain. … Brain research in this area is based on existing cognitive theories. The consensus at present is that true bilingualism in the sense that neither language has preferential status, does not exist. Instead one language is always chosen as the base (the ‘mother tongue’) and this is processed in universally similar regions mainly of the left hemisphere. On the other hand, it is possible that brain areas used by representation of a second language differ somewhat from person to person. Bilingual studies show that grammar needs to be learned young, whereas the semantics and vocabulary of a language can be delayed and go on throughout life (Neville & Bavelier, 1998). Teaching programmes of the future might be able to build on exemplary systems in efficient learners. Research still needs to establish whether a sensitive period exists for second language learning, which will indicate optimal learning conditions.“

En ce qui concerne, de manière plus générale, le rapport entre l’expérience et l’apprentissage, Frith et Blakemore décrivent de manière simple les deux processus impliqués : l’un qui dépend fortement de l’âge et de la disponibilité des stimuli qui permettent à certaines fonctions de se développer normalement ; l’autre, moins dépendant de l’âge, est sollicité par la présence de certains stimuli :

“A fundamental characteristic of the brain is that it is organised through a process of interaction between the organism and its environment. In other words, experience drives the developmental process. Neurobiological research has shown that experience affects brain development in at least two ways. Firstly, ‘experience-expectant’ development involves age-specific neural readiness for information normally available in the (species- typical) environment, and often involves overproduction and selective elimination of synapses. Secondly, ‘experience-dependent’ development refers to those aspects of experience that are unique to the individual and may be acquired at a wide range of ages; learning and memory appear to be experience-dependent processes; experience- dependent processes appear to involve active synapse formation and modification in response to experience. Thus learning and memory can be viewed as the most education- relevant aspect of a general adaptive process that updates the organisation of the brain on the basis of the organism’s experience.” (p. 16)

Naturellement les auteurs citent les expériences menées sur les rats qui montrent que des environnements riches (en réalité normaux), comparés à des environnements pauvres en stimuli, permettent le développent d’une meilleure capacité d’apprentissage ; mais aussi que la privation de stimuli n’a pas nécessairement des effets définitifs:

“In these experiments, the ‘enriched’ environment in the laboratory was actually more like the normal environment of a rat in the wild. So, rather than showing that extra stimulation leads to an increase in synaptic connections, it might be more accurate to say that a more ‘normal’ environment leads to more synaptic connections than a deprived environment. In terms of human babies, the research does not imply that parents should provide special ‘enriching’ experiences to children beyond those that they experience in everyday life. It is unlikely that children brought up in any ‘normal’ species-specific environment could be deprived of sensory input.” (p. 17)

“Recent studies have demonstrated that Romanian babies reared in severely deprived conditions, with poor nutrition, ill-health, little sensory or social stimulation, are more likely to have delayed development of skills such as walking and talking, and impaired social, emotional and cognitive development (O’Connor et al., 1999). However, the recovery of these functions and the resilience of the deprived children in these studies was striking. So although it is clearly damaging to deprive a baby and length of deprivation relates to extent of adverse effects, this research does suggest that even very deprived babies can recover to a large extent if given remedial stimulation and care.” (p. 18)

Une importante conclusion méthodologique qui concerne l’apport futur des neurosciences à l’éducation : les neurosciences sont susceptibles dans le futur de mettre en évidence les périodes de développement de la myélinisation, de la connectivité, et donc de donner des bases neurales aux périodes sensibles ; ces recherches pourront un jour permettre de donner des indications quant aux réponses à apporter à la question “Apprendre : quand et quoi ?”. Mais pour que cela arrive, il faut que la recherche en neurosciences et celle en éducation procèdent ensemble:

“brain imaging could in theory give a biological underpinning to concepts of critical/sensitive periods. In particular, it may be possible that research using diffusion tensor imaging will tell us about the development of myelination, connectivity, etc. and that this may relate to optimal windows for learning performance. However, if this type of brain research is to have an impact on education, it will need to be designed and carried out in active collaboration with educational researchers.” (p. 19)

- Life long learning: “The adult brain remains flexible and capable of a remarkable amount of change and relocation of function, depending on how it is used. It is important to point out that this type of plasticity is a baseline state – it is occurring all the time in the brain, whenever a new memory is laid down or a new face is seen.” (p. 24)

L’apprentissage n’est pas une activité unique et identique, elle diffère selon les types de contenus : “It is unlikely that there is one single type of learning for everything. In terms of brain structures involved, learning maths differs from learning to read, which differs from learning to play the piano.” (p. 25))

En particulier, il existe des apprentissages implicites et de apprentissages explicites : on est capables d’apprendre, sans s’en rendre compte, des règles complèxes en étant exposés à des séquences qui adèrent à ces règles. “Many years of research on implicit learning have shown that people are able to learn information in the absence of awareness. People can learn complex rules by being exposed to sequences that adhere to the rules, without having any explicit notion of the rules or having learned them (Berns et al., 1997)…

Learning a skill, that is procedural learning, differs from the acquisition of declarative knowledge (Bechara et al, 1995). …For purposes of teaching it might be important to know that learning facts, such as mathematical equations and historical dates, relies on different brain regions than learning to do sport or play a musical instrument. A possible research question is whether the two kinds of learning can occur in parallel rather than each having to be taught separately. For instance, can teaching usefully combine counting and skipping?

Teaching often involves making procedural knowledge declarative. How do teachers know when to make rules explicit? Does a reciprocal dialectic between implicit learning and explicit teaching aid learning? Can explicit teaching replace missing implicit learning? Is a degree of prior implicit learning always helpful?” (p. 26-27)” “Is it necessary to learn implicitly first, then explicitly? Can explicit learning happen when intuitive grasp is lacking? What does it mean to teach so that implicit learning is facilitated? ” (p. 41)

De plus, étant donné que l’apprentissage “change” notre cerveau: “What are the costs to the brain of acquiring a new skill or improving an old skill? Does enhancement of certain brain regions compromise other regions? Does getting better at one skill mean taking away space from another skill? What brain systems are involved in transfer of learning and can they be boosted? ” (p. 41)

- Individual differences and learning difficulties:”Little is known about individual differences in the brain. Brain research tends to look for similarities, not differences, between brains. Consequently, brain research on individual differences has hardly been done. In the future, such knowledge may help us to access each child’s personality, ability and learning needs. This may then lead to a more personalised, adequate and efficient way of teaching and learning.” (p. 43)

Les capacités mathématiques ont été étudiées par Stanislas Dehaene qui a proposé un modèle potentiellement applicable à l’enseignement des mathématiques et au traitement des pathologies connues sous le nom de discalculie: “In the adult brain, lesion and brain-imaging studies indicate that the left and right intraparietal area, which is involved in visuo-spatial processing, is associated with knowledge of numbers and their relations (‘number sense’). Firstly, parietal lesions can lead to dyscalculia. Secondly, the parietal lobe is activated by arithmetic (Deheane et al., 1999). This fits with the notion that calculation contains a spatial element. It is believed that this quantity representation system is present, at least in a rudimentary form, very early on in development and even in evolution because behavioural studies have revealed number perception, discrimination, and elementary calculation abilities in infants (Spelke, 1994) and animals (see Dehaene et al., 1998)….It has been proposed that our ability to make sense of number concepts rests on this non- verbal representational system located in the parietal lobe (Dehaene et al., 1999). Deheane suggests that during development and education the quantity system becomes progressively linked to other representations of numbers, either visually in the form of strings of Arabic digits (e.g. 85), or verbally in the form of strings of words (e.g. eighty- five).” (p. 45-46)

En général les neurosciences semblent apporter une aide efficace dans les cas de désordre de l’apprentissage et donnent des indications pertinentes pour les situations “normales”, où tout se passe bien : “There are a number of caveats, which temper this optimistic evaluation. It seems most likely that the main impact of neuroscience on education will be felt in the field of learning disorders. Research to date has implications for what to do when the brain goes wrong. The implications are less clear for what to do when brains function normally or how to improve normal functioning. Even psychology studies designed to answer questions of teaching and learning do not always have applications, because lab-based experiments rarely take into account the culture of the classroom or individual differences.” (p. 50)

Le texte présente en plus une série de questions ouvertes, possibles scénarios de recherche pour le  futur :

“Does knowing about the brain aid learning? Should children and adults (pupils, teachers and parents) be taught about their brains and learning? These are questions amenable to empirical research. Are there differences between teachers who are aware of neuroscience/psychology and teachers who are not? For example, are there differences in their methods or success? If teachers know about how the brain learns do they behave differently towards children? Would they change their class size, teaching or testing methods? “

En conclusion les auteurs indiquent leur sentiment quant au futur d’une science intégrée de l’apprentissage. Ils estiment à 5-10 ans le temps nécessaire pour créer une convergence, une coopération efficace, entre l’éducation, les neurosciences et la psychologie cognitive. Ceci pourra être rendu possible grâce à l’organisation de forums, lieux de réflexion communs, et grâce à la médiation des sciences cognitives. En 2010, des progrès on en effet été fait dans cette direction, avec la naissance d’associations, de journaux, de formations. Cependant on ne peut pas dès maintenant faire l’économie de certaines actions “d’impulsion” (comme celles décrites en fin de rapport), ainsi que de la nécessaire communication  entre le monde de l’éducation et le monde de la science du cerveau et de l’esprit :

“Learning experiments conducted by cognitive psychologists have taught us a lot about how we process information, about different ways of encoding information, about how to make encoding more efficient, and about the application of skills that enhance learning, such as mnemonics and imitation. Results from these experiments have implications for education as well as for neuroscience research. We strongly believe that to continue discovering how the brain learns and how to facilitate this learning, an interdisciplinary ‘learning science’ is needed. The evolution of such an approach, with convergence from brain scientists, psychologists, and educationers, would probably need five to ten years. A continuous forum for neuroscientists and educationers, with cognitive psychologists as mediators, could be a way forward. This would allow a common vocabulary to emerge and research questions to be discussed and elaborated. Within such a forum, a number of workshop and research projects could be organised, as well as a web-page discussion group. A charismatic individual needs to be found to lead such an enterprise, and the members should consist of scientists and practitioners with fresh ideas. An important prerequisite to generate research in teaching and learning is the dissemination of findings from neuroscience, possibly via cognitive psychology. Currently there is little information about neuroscience research that is accessible to educationers and teachers. Literature (books, journals, magazines), videos, CD ROMS, cassettes that explain basic findings from brain science and cognitive psychology would be a useful tool. However, the interaction should not comprise a one-way flow of information in which educationers learn about neuroscience. The goal of developing an interdisciplinary ‘science of learning’ cannot be usefully pursued by one or other of the disciplines taking the lead, but depends on each challenging the other with ideas and hypotheses to test. “