Neuroplasticity — a new weapon for non-violence
Are we on the brink of a third world war? The aggressive rhetoric seen over the past few weeks over the Korean crisis brings very little comfort to the public. The constant barrage of threats and counter threats seems so counterproductive and in fact silly.
Former Costa Rican President and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Oscar Arias eloquently stated “The best defense is to be defenseless”. But this requires a different mindset, namely to understand the peace making process not as a zero-sum game but as a cooperative outcome that benefits all. The challenge is to find ways and means to develop such different mindsets.
Recent research from the brain sciences has shown that a fundamental process that underlies all learning is neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to rewire itself by forming new neural connections. It forms the basis of all learning and occurs throughout life. It is indeed the critical process that needs to be fostered if we are to change mindsets.
The human brain can broadly be organized into two parts, ‘the thinking brain’ processed by the neocortex and the ‘social emotional brain processed by the limbic cortex. (Figure 1).
Figure 1 : Build explicit connections within and across the ‘thinking’ and ‘socio-emotional’ brain
Current educational curricula build explicit skills in information retrieval, literacy and numeracy which train parts of the ‘thinking brain’ and memory. They however, ignore the processes of ‘inquiry’, ‘regulation’ and ‘compassion’.
We propose a new curriculum model rooted in the neurosciences which will include explicit training in four competencies namely critical inquiry, mindfulness, empathy and compassion which will train the whole brain and also lead to peaceful and sustainable societies.
Critical inquiry is the process of learning about a concept, phenomenon or claim, through one’s own observation, experience, thinking, reasoning and judgement. This will build ‘thinking skills’ and specifically train ‘the thinking brain’.
Mindfulness is the conscious awareness that arises from paying attention to the experience of right now, non-judgmentally. Using a well-researched set of exercises and practices, it will train the brain to cultivate conscious regulation of attention, emotion, thought and belief that will allow responses to be made as opposed to just reacting to them. Mindfulness practices train both, the thinking and the socio-emotional brain.
Explicit training in the cultivation of empathy and compassion is crucial for building social emotional skills. While, empathy is our general capacity to resonate with others’ emotional states such as happiness, excitement, sorrow, or fear, in order for it to contribute to altruistic and pro-social behavior it needs to be accompanied by training in compassion. Explicit training in compassion will develop the socio-emotional brain and ensure that it works in conjunction with the thinking brain.
The next quintessential question is how we get to train the brain. The best option would be to make the suggested curricula an integral part of the K-12 school education when neuroplasticity is at its peak. The important point here is that it should not be a standalone subject but one that is integrated through the school system. This also means teacher training has to be revised as recently demonstrated by the category 1 UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education on Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP) workshop that brought more than 30 over teachers from 10 countries to develop skills in providing such curricula. Research from the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley provides scientific evidence that supports the utility of adopting these practices in school curricula.
The second suggestion might sound a bit more audacious. It is to make such curricula a necessary training for all leaders. The fine details of how such a program is constructed to suit local contexts can be ironed out but what is important is that leaders at all levels be required to do so as part of their term of office. The training could be done with the youth of their constituencies. Who knows, new neural networks might be created that will tend towards finding non-violent solutions to problems. In principle, if every leader follows this, then by default, the best defense would indeed have to be defenseless. Brash and maybe naïve, it might sound but what else do we have but our vision and dream for a peaceful future for all on this pale blue dot we call home.
About the authors
Dr. Anantha Duraiappah,
Director, UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP).
Dr. Duraiappah, who received his PhD in Economics from the University of Texas in Austin, USA, played a pivotal role in the establishment of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) while at United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP). He also served as founding director of the Inclusive Wealth Report released at the Rio+20 Summit in 2012.
At MGIEP, he is focusing on how “Firing Gandhi Neurons” can be integrated into the curricula of the formal, informal and non-formal education systems. He leads his team in New Delhi in its endeavor to position MGIEP as a pioneering research institute on education for peace and sustainable development.
Dr Nandini Chatterjee Singh
Senior National Project Officer
Nandini Chatterjee Singh is a cognitive neuroscientist and heading the Difference Learning Programme at UNESCO MGIEP. At her laboratory at the National Brain Research Centre (of India) she uses behaviour and neuroimaging to study brain circuits for Language, Literacy and Music.
Her research shows that learning in the native language is the key to functional literacy. Her research also focuses on emotion and music where she studies the rasas underlying different North Indian Classical ragas and their possible role in communicating with children on the autism spectrum. She is passionate about achieving universal literacy by 2020.
