Safe, Connected and Ready to Learn: The Role of Neuroscience in Education

We often think about prerequisites when we think about education and learning. For example, a passing grade in algebra would be a prerequisite to taking a trigonometry course. At a high level, a prerequisite is required before you can do something else. A prerequisite is something foundational. It is something that you build upon. In an academic context, a prerequisite is often thought about in terms of knowledge or experience required to prepare you for the next challenge.

However, there is something far more critical and foundational regarding a child's ability to learn. As educators, you play a crucial role in creating an environment where children can access the thinking and problem-solving regions of their brain, which can only occur when they feel safe and supported.

When a child does not feel safe, a child cannot learn.

Today, we know more about the human brain and nervous system and continue to learn new things daily. This knowledge is largely due to the explosion of research in neuroscience over the last several decades. Understanding the human brain and nervous system can significantly enhance educators' effectiveness.

Key Brain Structures: The Prefrontal Cortex and Hippocampus

The prefrontal cortex helps to regulate thoughts and actions; it is our thinking brain. It also plays a role in working memory. Notably, the prefrontal cortex develops well into adulthood, meaning children have a different capacity for logical and rational decision-making than adults. This developmental difference explains why children are more impulsive and reactive.

The hippocampus, a curved structure deep within the brain's temporal lobes, is a critical component of the limbic system and is essential for consolidating information from short-term memory to long-term memory. Its role in learning and memory is fundamental as it enables the formation and retrieval of declarative memories, which are memories of events, facts and general knowledge. Research suggests that the hippocampus is particularly susceptible to stress and can be affected by chronic stress, which may impact learning and memory processes.

The Amygdala: Our Threat Detection System

As you might imagine, the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus are crucial to learning. The amygdala is another area of the brain that is important to this conversation. The amygdala is our internal threat detection system. The amygdala detects threats and activates survival-related behaviours in response to perceived threatening or dangerous stimuli. When the amygdala is activated, a child becomes dysregulated and may shift into a fight, flight, or freeze response.

When a child exhibits significant behaviour in the classroom, it is often an autonomic stress response due to an activation of the amygdala. When the nervous system shifts into a stress response, the brain prioritizes safety. The thinking brain goes offline as the body mobilizes to fight, flight, or freeze.

Recognizing Emotional Dysregulation

Many children live in a chronic state of emotional dysregulation. They may be the children exhibiting significant and sometimes disruptive behaviours. They may be the children buried in oversized hoodies in the back of the class with their heads on the desk. These children who are in a chronic state of emotional dysregulation are often children who have experienced trauma from adverse childhood experiences. These children might not be getting regular meals or enough sleep. These children may be children with disabilities or neurodivergent children who often experience systemic trauma when their individual needs are not appropriately met.

Dysregulated children are frequently misunderstood in the name of behaviour, which leads them to be disproportionately subjected to punitive and exclusionary discipline, ultimately leading to further trauma. These children often need our help the most, although they may have difficulty asking for help.

Creating a Safe Learning Environment

You might be thinking, "My classroom is a safe place" or "I am a safe person," but there is often much below the surface that can contribute to a lack of felt safety. So, how do we help students feel safe, connected and ready to learn? It begins with us. Understanding the human brain and nervous system is foundational to helping others. Understanding behaviour through the brain and nervous system lens makes us realize that not all behaviour is intentional. Through this new lens, we can see that human behaviour is complex and driven by our biology.

Behaviour, even when it does not seem to make sense, is our brain and nervous system working to keep us safe.

This reframed perspective is critical to more effective support of children, who may have sensitive nervous systems that lead to significant behaviours. The simple shift of seeing children through a neuroscience-informed lens provides space for us to respond differently.

For instance, creating a predictable routine, providing a safe physical environment and fostering positive relationships are all strategies that can help children feel safe and ready to learn.

The Role of Self-Regulation for Educators

We must understand that when stressed and pushed beyond our capacity, we must be better equipped to help others. A prerequisite for us to help students feel safe, connected and ready to learn is an understanding of the impact that stress and trauma can have on us.

Becoming aware and attuned to your own stress response system can equip you to identify your internal feelings and sensations, and that awareness is critical to developing strategies to manage your own internal stressors, putting you in control and prepared to support your students.

Your awareness, along with a few thoughtful strategies, can help you avoid a stress response. After all, when your stress response system is activated and your thinking brain goes offline, you might respond in ways that are not aligned with your intent.

"We know that a dysregulated adult cannot regulate a dysregulated child."
- Dr. Bruce D. Perry, Psychiatrist and Senior Fellow of the Child Trauma Academy

Supporting Vulnerable Children Through Co‑Regulation and Attunement

Our awareness and focus on our own brain and nervous system open the door to better support the vulnerable children who need our help. When we are well-regulated, we have the capacity and ability to do things we cannot do when we are dysregulated. When well-regulated, we can be present and help children through co-regulation and attunement.

• Co-regulation is the process of supporting a child's emotional and behavioural regulation through a supportive relationship. 
• Attunement is the ability to understand and respond to a child's emotional state. When well-regulated, we can be curious, asking questions to understand why a child might be struggling.

The Power of Connection

One of our most powerful tools is connection. When we are well-regulated, we can connect with children and build supportive relationships. Supportive, positive adult relationships can reshape the brain and help children create new neural pathways through neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections.

By focusing on our actions and building positive relationships, we can help children feel safe, connected and ready to learn.

I had the privilege of working as a lead contributor for Crisis Prevention Institute's new neuroscience-based training for educators, Reframing Behavior, alongside my friend, colleague and collaborator Connie Persike and a fantastic team at CPI. The program is designed to bring the neuroscience of human behaviour to schools. It is a program that helps you understand your brain and nervous system and lets you see behaviour through the lens of the brain and nervous system. It will equip you with strategies and approaches to help get students out of fight, flight, or freeze mode so that they can feel safe, connected and ready to learn.

About the Author

Guy Stephens is the founder and executive director of the Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint (AASR), a nonprofit based in Maryland. AASR is a community of over 30,000 parents, self-advocates, teachers, school administrators, paraprofessionals, attorneys, related service providers and others working together to influence change in supporting children whose behaviours are often misunderstood. He has presented at conferences and events across North America and guest lectures for undergraduate and graduate courses as a national expert on the issue of restraint and seclusion. Stephens was a lead contributor to the Crisis Prevention Institute's Reframing Behavior program.