Bruce Wexler’s "Brain and Culture, Neurobiology, Ideology, and Social Change," like Norman Doidge's book "The Brain That Changes Itself," literally opens our minds. A highly detailed research-based view of how our brain works, Wexler's book is essential reading for those of us immersed in training-teaching-learning. It's as much about how we're wired as anything else, Wexler and Doidge seem to agree. And there's nothing simple about any of this. Wexler's experiments suggest that our emotional reactions can change the physical connections within our brains--an idea that reminds us of the importance of fostering emotional reactions within our learning opportunities instead of relying solely on a rational fill-'em-with-information approach. His comments about the importance of providing environments that are stimulating rather than sterile suggest that we're on the wrong track with many of sterile learning labs and drab workshop settings that remain prevalent in training-teaching-learning today. He builds a case for paying more attention to our actual learning environments when he reports that studies "in both cats and monkeys have found that animals raised in enriched environments perform much better on tests of frontal lobe function than animals raised in less stimulating environments" (p. 52). And he builds a strong case for incorporating play into our learning processes since it "appears to affect cognitive development, even in rats and even when the play is primarily motoric." In biological terms, "the whole of formal education is perhaps most appropriately seen as a human extension of play," Wexler suggests (p. 66). And I suspect our learners will be grateful and more successful than they already are if this is a reminder that we take to heart. ( )

It's now available as an ebook on the MIT press portal http://mitpress-ebooks.mit.edu/product/brain-culture