Read Online How Dogs Love Us: A Neuroscientist and His Adopted Dog Decode the Canine Brain by Gregory Berns - Free Book Online
Authors: Gregory Berns
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the classroom to touch the brain. I’m not sure the students ended up remembering much of what I said that first time, but it certainly made an impression when I reached into the bucket and brought out a full-sized, dripping wet human brain. Half the class said, “Cool!” while the other half simultaneously said, “Gross!”
By the time of the Dog Project, I had done Brain Day seven years in a row. Maddy was in fifth grade, her final year in elementary school, and Helen had begun middle school. The questions the students asked always fell into a predictable pattern. The bright ones asked questions like “Where do dreams and emotions come from?” Others just wanted to jam their fingers as far into the brain as they could. The last year I did Brain Day at the elementary school, a small boy raised his hand and asked a question I had never heard before.
“Have you ever studied a dog’s brain?” he asked.
The teacher chided the boy for asking silly questions.
“As a matter of fact,” I interrupted, startled by the coincidence. “We are about to do just that.”
With Helen’s transition to middle school, there wouldn’t be an opportunity to bring the brains to her science class. Sixth-grade science was devoted to geology, meteorology, and astronomy, and biology wouldn’t return until the seventh grade.
Growing up, Kat and I had gone to public schools, and we believed strongly in public education. As is true in many cities, however, the quality of the public schools in Atlanta varies widely. The schools that Helen and Maddy attended were solid but had the difficult mission of fulfilling the needs of all the kids in a very diverse district. A large number of children couldn’t afford to buy lunch and many had special needs.
At the end of her first week of classes in middle school, Helenbrought home her science textbook, one apparently compiled by a team of bureaucrats who had overdosed on their daily Ritalin. Every page was crammed with full-color pictures guaranteed to distract even the most focused student from the text. The text itself was nothing more than a litany of facts to be memorized. Although it was the neighboring school district that had made national headlines for banning the word
evolution
from its textbooks, you could still detect a patronizing tone throughout. More than anything, it smacked of scientists-say-it-is-so (wink-wink).
Helen struggled. Although she was diligent with her homework, her test and quiz scores hovered in the mid-70s. Kat and I didn’t want to be helicopter parents, but we couldn’t let Helen flounder. It was time for a parent-teacher conference.
Helen’s science teacher was a pleasant man who bore a striking resemblance to Ed Helms. The classroom looked much like I’d expected it to: slate laboratory tables arranged in neat rows, a chemical sink with an eyewash station should any mishap occur, wall cabinets full of rock specimens, a large periodic table of the elements on the wall.
After an exchange of pleasantries, I moved on to the reason for our meeting. “We’re concerned about how Helen is doing in science.”
He pulled up a grade spreadsheet to show us.
“Helen’s a good student,” he said. “She turns in all of her homework.”
“Yes,” I said, “but she seems unclear on what material she will be expected to know.”
“The students get exposed to the material multiple times,” he explained. “They hear about it in class. They read it in the textbook. And then we review it.”
This may have been partly true, but having helped Helen with her homework and then heard what was on each test, I was skeptical. Helen was in fifth-period science, and I began to suspect that theteacher might have been confusing what he had gone over with the classes at the beginning of the day with those at the end.
“Helen said her class is noisy and that she has a hard time hearing what you’re saying.”
“By fifth period,” he replied, “the kids have a hard
By the time of the Dog Project, I had done Brain Day seven years in a row. Maddy was in fifth grade, her final year in elementary school, and Helen had begun middle school. The questions the students asked always fell into a predictable pattern. The bright ones asked questions like “Where do dreams and emotions come from?” Others just wanted to jam their fingers as far into the brain as they could. The last year I did Brain Day at the elementary school, a small boy raised his hand and asked a question I had never heard before.
“Have you ever studied a dog’s brain?” he asked.
The teacher chided the boy for asking silly questions.
“As a matter of fact,” I interrupted, startled by the coincidence. “We are about to do just that.”
With Helen’s transition to middle school, there wouldn’t be an opportunity to bring the brains to her science class. Sixth-grade science was devoted to geology, meteorology, and astronomy, and biology wouldn’t return until the seventh grade.
Growing up, Kat and I had gone to public schools, and we believed strongly in public education. As is true in many cities, however, the quality of the public schools in Atlanta varies widely. The schools that Helen and Maddy attended were solid but had the difficult mission of fulfilling the needs of all the kids in a very diverse district. A large number of children couldn’t afford to buy lunch and many had special needs.
At the end of her first week of classes in middle school, Helenbrought home her science textbook, one apparently compiled by a team of bureaucrats who had overdosed on their daily Ritalin. Every page was crammed with full-color pictures guaranteed to distract even the most focused student from the text. The text itself was nothing more than a litany of facts to be memorized. Although it was the neighboring school district that had made national headlines for banning the word
evolution
from its textbooks, you could still detect a patronizing tone throughout. More than anything, it smacked of scientists-say-it-is-so (wink-wink).
Helen struggled. Although she was diligent with her homework, her test and quiz scores hovered in the mid-70s. Kat and I didn’t want to be helicopter parents, but we couldn’t let Helen flounder. It was time for a parent-teacher conference.
Helen’s science teacher was a pleasant man who bore a striking resemblance to Ed Helms. The classroom looked much like I’d expected it to: slate laboratory tables arranged in neat rows, a chemical sink with an eyewash station should any mishap occur, wall cabinets full of rock specimens, a large periodic table of the elements on the wall.
After an exchange of pleasantries, I moved on to the reason for our meeting. “We’re concerned about how Helen is doing in science.”
He pulled up a grade spreadsheet to show us.
“Helen’s a good student,” he said. “She turns in all of her homework.”
“Yes,” I said, “but she seems unclear on what material she will be expected to know.”
“The students get exposed to the material multiple times,” he explained. “They hear about it in class. They read it in the textbook. And then we review it.”
This may have been partly true, but having helped Helen with her homework and then heard what was on each test, I was skeptical. Helen was in fifth-period science, and I began to suspect that theteacher might have been confusing what he had gone over with the classes at the beginning of the day with those at the end.
“Helen said her class is noisy and that she has a hard time hearing what you’re saying.”
“By fifth period,” he replied, “the kids have a hard
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