Category: Education

October 8, 2024

Mismatch Between Our Biologically Evolved Educative Instincts and Culturally Evolved Schools

Children are designed, by natural selection, to educate themselves. It is time we let them.

February 28, 2023

Where Do Librarians Fit in the Effort to Improve Mental Immunity?

Misinformation is an epidemic and librarians are the frontline workers.

November 9, 2020

Promoting Cooperation in Schools Using Norms and Processes from our Evolutionary History

Cooperative learning can help to establish social conditions that are similar to those that brought about cooperation in early humans.

November 5, 2020

Elinor’s Classroom: Developing a Connected Concept of the Commons for 21st Century Civic Education

A new culture of interdisciplinary teaching is emerging in regards to the cultural evolution of school communities as agents of change through social learning.

September 3, 2020

Transfer of Learning in Evolution Understanding: A Challenge Not Just For Students

Researchers focused on teaching evolutionary science have taken up the charge of seeking effective ways to help students appropriately transfer the core concepts of evolution across the diversity of phenomena that evolution scientists seek to explain.

August 20, 2020

Education is an Evolutionary Science. Why Don’t We Teach It That Way?

There is an inspiring new direction in which the evolutionary science of education can be engaged as a platform for the empowerment of youth and whole school communities.

August 13, 2020

Evolving Minds: Learning as Evolution, Evolution as Learning

The exploration of learning as an evolutionary process and evolution as a learning process holds untapped educational potential.

July 13, 2020

It’s Time to Fix Evolution’s Public Relations Problem

Evolution denial is rooted in deeply held misconceptions and current practices in evolution education are not adequate to address the problem.

July 6, 2020

Evolution Education Without Borders: A Collection of Essays on Teaching Evolution as an Interdisciplinary Science

Empowering students with the tools for understanding evolutionary processes will help them take on leadership roles in evolving the future of education itself.

April 27, 2020

Finding Purpose in Evolution Education

Helping students understand the evolution of our human sense of purpose should be the central purpose of evolution education.

December 21, 2018

A School, Camp, and Retreat Center Informed by Evolutionary Science

August 16, 2018

Attention Teachers! How To Turn Your Classes Into Prosocial Groups

ProSocial.World, a project by David Sloan Wilson, is a practical method for improving the efficacy of groups and wellbeing of their members. Why not use the method in our own college classes?

September 26, 2017

Unspeakable, Forbidden, Taboo: Teaching Evolution in the South with Dr. Amanda Glaze

Join Dr. Amanda Glaze in this insightful and engaging webinar as she discusses her research on teaching and learning evolution in the South and hear the insightful stories she has collected along the way.

July 25, 2017

Teaching Evolution Requires More Than Evidence, It Takes Empathy

It is possible for people to be highly knowledgeable and reject evolution for reasons beyond evidence. When that happens, it is important to listen in order to understand why so we can bridge those gaps.

June 30, 2017

[WEBINAR] Learning from Evolution About Childhood & Education: A Conversation With Peter Gray

Join Child Development expert Dr. Peter Gray, Research Professor at Boston College and a regular contributor to "Psychology Today", as he discusses evolutionary perspectives on childhood development and education.

November 28, 2016

Saved by Evolution: How A Prison Inmate Turned Science Into A Meaning System

Gary Shepherd is much more than a self-taught scholar. He has actually been saved by science, in the same way that many people are saved by religion.

March 17, 2016

Should Evolution be Taught in Elementary School?

Nearly half of the U.S. population rejects evolution. Recent research suggests that teaching evolution to elementary aged children may help tip the scales.

March 8, 2016

Evolution Shows Us That Nurture & Love Are Fundamental To Mental Health

Evolution helps explain why the need for love and nurture is key in creating a childhood that makes humans happy and productive throughout their lives.

February 11, 2016

Using Evolution to Teach Evolution

What does evolution suggest is the best way to teach?

December 28, 2015

My New Year’s Resolution: Teach Science to Promote Peace and Prosperity

how can we help ourselves to move toward a peaceful and prosperous future? One that is also more just and equitable? Teach science. That’s right. Teach science early, teach science often, and teach science well.

December 20, 2015

My New Year’s Resolution: To Play

This year, I’m seizing the opportunity to be a better parent. This year, I’m going to play more. Because I want my children to play more.

December 15, 2015

My Resolution: Getting My Stories Straight

Every day teachers build lessons, units, semesters, and school years around a narrative structure. But did you know that these strategies also make sense from an evolutionary perspective as well?

November 3, 2015

Can Teaching Evolution Help Kids Flourish In School And In Life?

If we can agree to just the basic, face-value commitments connecting the best that has been thought and known about the complexities of our universe, with the best that has been thought and known about the flourishing of our species, we can evolve a global coalition for change with a breadth and depth only imaginable today.

March 15, 2015

Stop Teaching Nonsense To Our Teens. Teach Them The Fact Of Life.

July 10, 2014

One Of History’s Greatest Interdisciplinary Thinkers

July 7, 2014

PROSOCIAL Can Improve The Quality Of Life – One Group At A Time

July 3, 2014

Why Best Practices Don’t Spread

June 26, 2014

Fairness. What It Is, What It Isn’t, And What It Might Be For

June 19, 2014

Adaptive Memory. How Evolution Shapes What We Learn And Remember

June 5, 2014

Evolutionary Perspectives On Teaching

Can we reach greater heights of education and learning using an evolution-influenced system?

May 29, 2014

Playful Learning: Preparing 21st Century Children For A Global World

What if we could wave a magic wand and change the approach used in many schools today?

May 22, 2014

Taming The Autonomous Learner

May 15, 2014

Is The Ability To Learn Language Different From The Ability To Learn Math?

May 8, 2014

Evolutionary Educational Psychology as a Base for Instructional Design

While it is intuitively plausible that teaching [critical thinking] skills should be useful, evidence that they are teachable is sparse.

May 1, 2014

The Evolved Mind In The Modern School

April 24, 2014

Evolutionary Approaches to Early Education

Some things that the public has been sold on as enhancing early childhood development may be having the opposite effect.

April 17, 2014

Series on Evolutionary Perspectives on Educational Research, Policy, and Practice

Humans have evolved over millions of years, yet formal education practices are of recent vintage. Given what we've learned about our brain's evolution, education practices need to evolve as well.

February 7, 2014

Books are Maps of Nature, Screens are Maps of Nothing

Our Stone Age brains never had or needed a way to process written symbolic language.

June 18, 2013

Free To Learn: Does The Hunter-Gatherer Style Of Education Work?

There is no lack of criticisms against our education system, but why would a psychologist advocate for a return to Pleistocene era principles?

April 9, 2013

Learning from Mother Nature About Teaching Our Children: Ten Simple Truths

Scientists explored new solutions from an unusual source: Darwin's theory of evolution.Education isn’t working well in America, despite billions of dollars and everyone’s best intentions. Not too long ago, scientists explored new solutions from an unusual source: Darwin’s theory of evolution.

February 21, 2013

Evolutionary Theory Can Inform the Intelligent Design of Educational Policy and Practice

How evolutionary psychology helps us teach our children better. Evolutionary developmental psychologist maintain that evolutionary psychological theory should be regarded as an overarching framework for studying the ways in which youngsters’ developing cognitive and social skills may be adaptive or maladaptive in school environments.

February 6, 2013

Four US States Considering Laws That Challenge Teaching of Evolution

Critics charge 'academic freedom' legislation in Colorado, Missouri, Montana and Oklahoma is just creationism in disguise.

February 2, 2013

Is Scientific Genius Extinct? One Expert Thinks So

Modern-day science has little room for the likes of Galileo or Charles Darwin, he argues.

February 1, 2013

Nessie As Evidence Against Evolution … And Five Odder Things Kids Are Taught

The Accelerated Christian Education curriculum is used in more than 50 UK schools.

January 28, 2013

How To Celebrate Darwin Day

Happy Darwin Day and Evolution Weekend.

January 18, 2013

Why Bad Science Is Like Bad Religion

In both religion and science, some people are dishonest, exploitative, incompetent and exhibit other human failings.

January 11, 2013

A Science Teacher Draws the Line at Creation

A science teacher asks if scientists and biblical literalists can get along.

October 24, 2012

Charles Darwin And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

An inspiring story about a day in the life of Charles Darwin.

October 2, 2012

The Internet Blowhard’s Favorite Phrase

Why do people love to say that correlation does not imply causation?

September 29, 2012

The Most Hilarious and Frightening Attack On Science

The Daily Show reveals the stupidity behind attacks on science.

September 25, 2012

Play, Stress, and the Learning Brain

An extraordinary number of species—from squid to lizards to humans—engage in play. But why?

September 19, 2012

6 Reasons Why Evolution Isn’t A Sure Thing

Obviously there's loads of scientific evidence that supports evolution. But we wanted to understand why some people oppose it.

August 21, 2012

Orangutans on Ritalin: An Evolutionary Developmental Psychology Perspective on ADHD

No animal other than us modern humans—our hunter-gatherer ancestors included—suffers ADHD. But plenty of today’s elementary school children do. What's going on?

August 14, 2012

Evolution Stands Up To Bullies

A new study examines humanity's drive to stand up against bullies.

August 1, 2012

Being Kind Makes Kids Happy

A new study is the first to show that kids get a happiness boost from sacrificing for others, suggesting our strong inclinations for altruism.

July 23, 2012

Compare The Meerkat and The Lawyer

Looking at animal behaviour for insights into corporate life is just another example of silo busting, a practice that is becoming all the rage.

February 10, 2012

An Unnatural Childhood: An Evolutionary View of Teaching and Parenting

Evolution: This View of Life’s Education Editor Gabrielle Principe talks with WHYY’s Marty Moss-Coane on Radio Times about an evolutionarily informed approach to educating and rearing children. In the effort to give kids a leg up in life, parents bombard them with educational toys, rush them to chess, fencing, and piano lessons, and place them in preschool programs that stress academics in the earliest years.