Let’s Teach the Science of Learning (Instead of Chasing Neuromyths)

In a 2025 survey of teachers in 11 countries, more than half of the respondents endorsed 8 of 21 common neuromyths in a list of 30 statements about neuroscience and learning. Neuromyths are statements about the brain that are not supported by research.

As someone who has spent the last 20 years studying the application of neuroscience to learning and teaching and who has written and presented about neuromyths on many occasions, I find this latest article concerning, but perhaps not in the way you might think.  Some of the statements are clearly wrong.  For example, there is no evidence that listening to classical music improves mental capacity.  For more information on how this neuromyth probably came into being, CLICK HERE

However, I find statement 4 to be less clearly wrong.  The neuromyth that it is trying to dispel is that exercises that cross the center line (that involve connecting the right and left sides of the body) are helpful in integrating the two hemispheres of the brain, since they govern opposite sides of the body. Strictly speaking, this is a neuromyth. However, there is certainly evidence that physical activity, getting up and moving around – whether it involves crossing the center line or not – is very effective as a break and can help students refocus (better brain function) for whatever the next activity is.  In my experience, students (of all ages) enjoy this kind of activity and can benefit from it as a brain break. Labeling this a neuromyth could mislead educators into thinking movement breaks are ineffective, when in fact physical activity—even without cross-lateral motion—improves attention and readiness to learn.

Statement 6 is one that we can comfortably classify as a neuromyth. People like to say that they are good multi-taskers, but that is not really true. Humans are not good at doing two things at once or even rapid task-switching (one neuroscientist I remember called this fast-tasking). Our conscious processing is quite limited and multitasking results in severely degraded performance of tasks that we try to perform simultaneously.  I often use the example of keeping an eye on my children while I was cooking dinner. While I didn’t have much of a choice, neither process had my full attention and neither was performed to the standard I could meet if doing only one thing.

Statement 3, on the other hand, is much more debatable as a neuromyth.  The reason we could agree that it is wrong is based on the words “a larger amount of stimuli.”  Large amounts of stimuli are not necessarily advantageous and too much stimulation can have negative effects.  The other part of this statement that could cause equivocation is the term “improve the brains.”  Using that term implies that there are better brains or worse brains and there is no scientific evidence of brain quality.  And there is no brain quality rating scale that I am aware of.

Nonetheless, environments clearly have both negative and positive impacts on brain development.   There is ample and credible research on the effect of hearing more words in early childhood on later language development and academic success. There is also very clear evidence of the effect of socio-economic status on cognitive development, including executive functions which are highly predictive of academic and life success.  So, while debunking the neuromyth that lots of stimulation is a good thing, we should take pains not to suggest that environments don’t matter.  They do.

Statements 2 and 5 are classic examples of neuromyths—widely believed by many educators and parents—but lacking evidence. Moreover, believing these neuromyths can result in unproductive or even counterproductive teaching strategies.  For example, trying to provide instruction in a student’s “dominant learning style” is not only a waste of time for a teacher (who never has enough time anyway), it deprives students of the opportunity to experience multi-sensory (or multi-modal) content, which is likely to result in deeper and more enduring learning.  Further, it deprives students of the opportunity to develop various capacities in their minds that make learning easier and more effective.

The argument is similar for the “right-brained” vs “left-brained” neuromyth. We use both sides of brains for everything we do.  While someone can be left-handed, it doesn’t mean that that side of their brain dominates in how they learn.  Thus, like the learning styles myth, it can be an exercise in futility for teachers and a reason for students to avoid certain tasks (I’m not a math person, or I’m not creative) when we could be helping them develop their talents in many directions.

Statement 7 is a neuromyth, but one that I find a little puzzling to worry about when it comes to teaching.  Dietary supplements, like Omega-3, exist because some people need an external source for general good health. There doesn’t seem to be evidence that these supplements help with academic achievement, even if there is evidence that some individuals benefit from them in terms of overall health.  This seems less relevant to classroom practice, since dietary supplements fall outside the scope of teaching.

I’ve left statement 1 to the end.  I find it the most troubling of this group of 8 statements, in terms of condemning it as a neuromyth.  Reading it strictly, it is something teachers should be able to assess as incorrect. But we could rewrite the statement with distinctions that most educators might not notice and it would be a correct statement.

Here is the confusing verbiage:

• “Dominant intelligence profile.” If we used the word “cognitive” and referred to stronger and weaker cognitive skills, rather than a single dominant skill, and
• “Mathematical, verbal, spatial.” These are three types of reasoning skills, but there are others. And reasoning skills can be stronger or weaker but in many cases there is not one that is clearly “dominant.”

If we rewrote the statement in a way that many educators might assume means the same thing—that teaching needs to take into consideration how each students learns and what their cognitive strengths and weaknesses are—then the statement would be true.  Drawing the distinctions between “dominant” and “stronger” and between cognitive skills and intelligence is relevant. Observing that a list of reasoning skills is incomplete is pertinent. But what these distinctions may obfuscate is the essential idea that teachers need to understand how learning happens.  It is vital for teachers to understand that it is possible to understand how their students learn and for them and the students themselves to use their strengths to help them be more successful academically.

The other complication of labeling this particular statement as a neuromyth is that it seems to assume a common and inaccurate belief that intelligence is fixed.  If each student had an “intelligence profile” that would never change in any meaningful way, then it might be even more important to understand what it was.  But the truth is that cognitive skills, or intelligence, can be developed to a far greater degree than most people realize.

Focusing on neuromyths can too easily become a game of “gotcha,” pointing out what teachers supposedly get wrong. But that approach misses the real issue. The problem isn’t that teachers are gullible; it’s that their preparation and professional development rarely give them a clear, evidence-based understanding of how students learn. Without that foundation, it’s no surprise that appealing but misleading ideas take root.

The more productive path forward is not just to debunk myths, but to ensure that every teacher has the knowledge and tools to understand how learning actually works. When teachers grasp how cognitive skills develop, how attention and memory function, and how experience shapes the brain, they can make better instructional decisions every day. Rather than asking teachers to dodge pitfalls, we should be equipping them to walk confidently in the right direction.