The Evolved Mind and Modern Education
Status of Evolutionary Educational Psychology

This Element provides an evolutionary perspective on modern education and puts an end to the education wars.

David C. Geary (Author)

9781009454841, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 23 May 2024

98 pages
23.5 x 15.9 x 1.1 cm, 0.29 kg

Humans have an extraordinary ability to create evolutionarily novel knowledge, such as writing systems and mathematics. This accumulated knowledge over several millennia supports large, dynamic societies that now require children to learn this novel knowledge in educational settings. This Element provides a framework for understanding the evolution of the brain systems that enable innovation and novel learning and how these systems can act on human cognitive universals, such as language, to create evolutionarily novel abilities, such as reading and writing. Critical features of these networks include the top-down control of attention, which is central to the formation of evolutionarily novel abilities, as well as self-awareness and mental time travel that support academic self-concepts and the generation of long-term educational goals. The basics of this framework are reviewed and updated here, as are implications for instructional practices.

1. Introduction
2. Brain and cognitive evolution
3. Cumulative cultural evolution and academic learning
4. Noncognitive processes and educational outcomes
5. Instruction implications and research
6. Conclusion
References.

Subject Areas: Physiological & neuro-psychology, biopsychology [JMM]