Education’s Failure to Promote Use of Full Brain Potential

Evidence that current education does not promote full development of the brain is found in research on human cognitive development (which, as noted in the previous section, reflects brain development). From infancy to adolescence, during the period when the brain is rapidly maturing, there is concomitant growth in general intelligence, ego development, field independence, and other related cognitive variables. However, after adolescence, when the initial maturation of brain processes is largely completed, these cognitive abilities do not continue to develop. This indicates that despite all efforts of secondary and higher education, higher cognitive processes, and the corresponding higher potential of the brain are not being developed.

Development of Cognitive Abilities

Summary: Research indicates that many aspects of cognitive development that are closely related to brain development do not continue to expand after late childhood, despite the efforts of current education. Examples are general intelligence, field independence, and ego development.

Sample findings: Fundamental cognitive capabilities such as intelligence are closely associated with effectiveness of brain functioning. For example, an aspect of general intelligence called “fluid intelligence,” which is the ability to reason abstractly and perceive complex relations independent of past experience and education, is associated with the executive control functions of the frontal lobes; the frontal lobes are involved in managing attention in relation to task requirements that are understood and remembered (10,11).

Fluid intelligence increases developmentally up to age 17 but not thereafter (12,13). Similarly, psychometric research indicates that a related measure, the intelligence quotient (IQ), does not increase after adolescence. In addition, previous attempts to increase intellectual ability, particularly general intelligence, have been generally disappointing and inconclusive (14,15).

Field independence is a measure of “psychological differentiation,” a developmental process underlying the ability to utilize one’s internal frame of reference for comprehension of the perceptual and social environment (16); it enables one to maintain inner stability in a changing environment. Field independence is positively associated with intelligence, including fluid intelligence, and also positively correlated with cognitive developmental measures such as formal operational stage and moral reasoning stage (17,18). Field independence, like intelligence, increases developmentally up to about age 17, but does not increase after that time (19).

Cognitive-structural theorists similarly propose that cognitive development appears to terminate in a stage of abstract reasoning ability that is generally achieved by middle or late adolescence (20). A widely used cognitive-structural measure of ego (self) development has also been found to show little evidence of change after age 18–20 (21,22).

These findings indicate that secondary and higher education have failed to systematically develop the higher brain functioning that is associated with higher cognitive development. This is in striking contrast with the positive effects of Consciousness-Based education, which include greater integration of brain functioning, improvement in brain processes associated with more effective cognitive functioning, and increased intelligence.

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References for this Page

(10) Cognitive Psychology 30: 257–303, 1996.
(11) International Journal of Aging & Human Development 45: 99–109, 1997.
(12) Acta Psychologia 26: 107–129, 1967.
(13) Multivariate Behavioral Research 6: 503–514, 1971.
(14) Intelligence Research and Intelligent Policy. In How and How Much Can Intelligence Be Increased? Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1982.
(15) Harvard Educational Review 39: 1–29, 1969.
(16) Psychological Differentiation. New York: Wiley, 1962.
(17) Child Study Journal 2: 67–76, 1980.
(18) Dissertation Abstracts International 32: 2190A, 1971.
(19) Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 7: 291–300, 1967.
(20) The Psychology of the Child. New York: Basic Books, 1969.
(21) Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 48: 947–962, 1985.
(22) Journal of Youth and Adolescence 8: 1–20, 1979