Brain Rules (Updated and Expanded)

Twilight of the Idols
,” she said. “If you are going to
be an atheist, be the best one out there. 
Bon appetit!
”
I was stunned. But I understood a powerful message: Curiosity itself
was the most important thing. And what I was interested in 
mattered
. I have
never been able to turn off this fire hose of curiosity.
Most developmental psychologists believe that a child’s need to know is
a drive as pure as a diamond and as distracting as chocolate. Even though
there is no agreed-upon definition of curiosity in cognitive neuroscience, I
couldn’t agree more. I firmly believe that if children are allowed to remain
curious, they will continue to deploy their natural tendencies to discover
and explore until they are 101. This is something my mother seemed to
know instinctively.
For little ones, discovery brings joy. Like an addictive drug, exploration
creates the need for more discovery so that more joy can be experienced. It
is a straight-up reward system that, if allowed to flourish, will continue into
the school years. As children get older, they find that learning brings them
not only joy but also mastery. Expertise in specific subjects breeds the
confidence to take intellectual risks. If these kids don’t end up in the
emergency room, they may end up with a Nobel Prize.

---

I believe it is possible to break this cycle, anesthetizing both the process
and the child. By first grade, for example, children learn that education
means an A. They begin to understand that they can acquire knowledge not
because it is interesting, but because it can get them something. Fascination
can become secondary to “What do I need to know to get the grade?” But I
also believe the curiosity instinct is so powerful that some people overcome
society’s message to go to sleep intellectually, and they flourish anyway.
My grandfather was one of those people. He was born in 1892 and lived
to be 101 years old. He spoke eight languages, went through several
fortunes, and remained in his own house (mowing his own lawn) until the
age of 100. He was lively as a firecracker to the end. At a party celebrating
his centenary, he took me aside. “You know, 
Juanito
,” he said, clearing his
throat, “sixty-six years separate the Wright brothers’ airplane from Neil
Armstrong and the moon.” He shook his head, marveling. “I was born with
the horse and buggy. I die with the space shuttle. What kind of thing is
that?” His eyes twinkled. “I live the good life!”
He died a year later.
I think of him a lot when I think of exploration. I think of my mother
and her magically transforming rooms. I think of my youngest son
experimenting with his tongue, and my oldest son’s overwhelming urge to
take on a beesting. And I think that we must do a better job of encouraging
lifelong curiosity, in our workplaces, our homes, and especially in our
schools.
More ideas
On a personal level, what this tells us is to follow our passions. But I would
also like to see change on a broader scale so that our environments truly
support our individual efforts to remain curious.
Free time at work
Smart companies take to heart the power of exploration. For example,
companies such as 3M, Genentech, and Google allowed employees to use
15 or 20 percent of their workweek to go where their mind asks them to go.

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The proof is in the bottom line: At Google, fully 50 percent of new products
—including Gmail, Google News, and AdSense—came from “20 percent
time.” Facebook, LinkedIn, and other tech companies hold “hackathons”:
marathon programming sessions where coders can earn prizes for creating
something interesting.
Schools where you learn on the job
If you could step back in time to one of the first Western-style
universities, say, the University of Bologna, and visit its biology labs, you
would laugh out loud. I would join you. By today’s standards, biological
science in the 11th century was a joke, a mix of astrological influences,
religious forces, dead animals, and rude-smelling chemical concoctions. But
if you went down the hall and peered inside Bologna’s standard lecture
room, you wouldn’t feel as if you were in a museum. You would feel at
home. There is a lectern for the teacher to hold forth, surrounded by chairs
for the students to absorb whatever is being held forth—much like today’s
classrooms. Could it be time for a change?
Some people have tried to harness our natural exploratory tendencies by
using “problem-based” or “discovery-based” learning models. What’s
missing are empirical results that show the long-term effects of these styles.
To this end, I would like to see more degree programs modeled after
medical schools. The best medical-school model has three components: a
teaching hospital; faculty who work in the field as well as teach; and
research laboratories. It is a surprisingly successful way of transferring
complex information from one brain to another. Students get consistent
exposure to the real world, by the third year spending half of their time in
class and half learning on the job. They are taught by people who actually
do what they teach as their “day job.” And they get to participate in
practical research programs.
Here’s a typical experience in medical school: The clinician-professor is
lecturing in a traditional classroom setting and brings in a patient to
illustrate some of his points. The professor announces: “Here is the patient.
Notice that he has disease X with symptoms A, B, C, and D.” He then
begins to lecture on the biology of disease X. While everybody is taking
notes, a smart medical student raises her hand and says, “I see symptoms A,

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B, C, and D. What about symptoms E, F, and G?” The professor looks a bit
chagrined (or excited) and responds, “We don’t know about symptoms E, F,
and G.” You can hear a pin drop at those moments, and the impatient voices
whispering inside the students’ heads are almost audible: “Well, let’s find
out!” These are the opening words of most of the great research ideas in
human medicine.
That’s true exploratory magic. The tendency is so strong that you have
to deliberately cut off the discussions to keep the ideas from forming.
Rather than cutting off such discussions, most American medical schools
possess powerful research wings. By simple juxtaposition of real-world
needs with traditional book learning, a research program is born.
I envision a college of education where the program is all about brain
development. Like a medical school, it is divided into three parts. It has
traditional classrooms. It is a community school staffed and run by three
types of faculty: traditional education faculty who teach the college
students, certified teachers who teach the little ones attending the
community school, and brain scientists who run the research labs devoted to
a single purpose: investigating how the human brain learns in teaching
environments, then actively testing hypothesized ideas in real-world
classroom situations.
Students would get a bachelor of 
science
in education. Future educators
are infused with deep knowledge about how the human brain acquires
information. After their first year of study, students would start actively