The Potential of Systems Thinking in Teacher Reform as Theorized for the Teaching Brain Framework

The teaching brain is a dynamic system that is in constant interaction with the learning brain. If we fail to explore the teaching brain we will continue to design educational reform policies that ignore the most important lens in the classroom: the teachers’. Master teachers recognize their perspective and leverage their teaching brains to embody a systems thinking view of their practice. If all teachers were taught how to recognize themselves as self-created, organized systems existing within the larger teaching–learning interaction, they would understand how their context and intentions affect the teacher–student interaction. Education reformmust acknowledge and understand more about the teaching brain, how master teachers practice systems thinking and the mutually interacting brains of teacher and student if we hope to truly improve how we educate children. Teaching and learning are too often viewed as simple, linear systems. In this commonly held perspective, the teacher gives the student knowledge. In turn the student absorbs that knowledge and standardized assessments are then used to determine the level of achievement for both the teacher and student. Since its creation the field of Mind, Brain and Education (MBE) has argued against this linear framework by contributing research supporting the idea that students are not receptacles of knowledge, but rather dynamic systems who have complex learning brains. Students interact with the