“The initial conversation between Professor Feuerstein and my son, who was then seven and had diagnosed with autism at the age of three, shocked me because this was the first time, he had uttered a complete, original sentence, not one he had heard in a book or video and was repeating, in years. In fact, it may well have been the longest and most coherent sentence that he had ever spoken in his life.” Hannah Brown, self-described as “cynical New York Times journalist”.
Einstein is the poster person for scientists. Literally. His face adorned my walls in all the houses I have lived in since I was a young adult, alongside with The Beatles and Bob Dylan. Einstein is on my “wall of fame” because of his radical and courageous gravitational theories that opposed Newton’s theories, which had remained unchallenged for two-hundred and fifty years. He epitomise intellectual freedom and fearless creativity.
In Newton’s theory, all objects in space attract each other with a gravitational force. Certainly, Newton could describe gravity, but he did not know how it worked. Einstein’s theories introduced a whole-picture of an encompassing gravity, at the same time delivering a well-aimed uppercut to Newton’s model. “Newton, forgive me,” wrote Einstein.
Unlike Newton, Einsteinian gravity is not about the attraction of bodies in space. Instead, his model is spacetime: spacetime adds time to the three dimensions of space to make a four-dimensional model of the universe, where massive objects curve space. For Einstein, gravity is the curvature or the warp of space by massive objects, and so objects travel along paths of those curves.
Despite my very (very) amateurish view of Einstein’s science – unfortunately I never took physics or any sciences at school – it has greatly influenced the way I look at the Feuerstein Method.
Born in Rumania, cognitive psychologist Israeli Professor Feuerstein radically challenged the (then) belief that there are inherently limits for a person with a learning disability. Or in the case of my brain injury, complex learning after a brain injury is inherently limited. In other words, once the brain neurons are destroyed by a brain injury, it is not worth the effort beyond practical basic cognitive rehabilitation, like speech and reading. The best advice is to accept the condition. Gone is gone.
Let’s see where I find my direct connection between Professors Feuerstein and Einstein:
- Einstein singlehandedly demolished the notion of gravity as a static force, as beforehand it was a widely held belief. In Feuerstein’s view of the brain, the neural landscape is not static, as it was beforehand widely believed.
- To paraphrase physicist John Wheeler’s wonderful description of Einsteinian gravity, “Spacetime tells matter how to move; matter tells spacetime how to curve”. In Feuerstein’s brain model, the brain’s neural connections tell you how to learn; his methodology tells you how to make new neural connections. Note the words new connections, not making new brain cells.
- Einstein imagined twists and turns of space as a plastic fabric of the universe itself. Feuerstein’s method of Structural Cognitive Modifiability, as the agent to change the cognitive fabric of the brain itself. It was a precursor of the notion of brain plasticity or neuroplasticity.
Professor Feuerstein’s program began with his teaching of child survivors of the Holocaust, who were considered unteachable because of their reported low IQ tests:
The IQ tests we did on these children had no way of taking into account the horrific experiences they had lived through, or of telling, we believed, what their true potential was. We discovered that all of the children had potentials that had been completely submerged in the standard IQ tests.
As Feuerstein said, ”Heredity, shmeredity!”
Eric Kandel, a neuroscientist Nobel Laureate in 2000 said, “Neuroplasticity is what marked the Decade of the Brain.” Neuroplasticity is the ability of neural networks to be rewired. As Norman Doidge wrote, “Everything having to do with human training and education has to be re-examined in light of neuroplasticity.” Just as the universe had to be reimagined after Einstein’s theories. In fact, Professor Feuerstein’s method is a whole-picture model of the brain, where intelligence is dynamic and modifiable, in the same way, that Einstein’s gravity is a whole-picture model of the universe as dynamic and modifiable by time and space.
I think of neuroplasticity in the same way as coronary bypass surgery, a procedure that restores blood flow to your heart muscle by diverting the flow of blood around a section of a blocked artery in your heart. Neuroplasticity is the ability of the brain to re-wire or re-route your neurological paths, or in Feuerstein’s brain map, to structurally modify the neural connections. But unlike a bypass surgery, which brings immediate recovery of the blood flow to the heart, the Feuerstein Method requires sustained work to create new or strengthened neural pathways.
Thankfully, in retrospect, I had no idea when I started that the Feuerstein Method would be a very, very big ask for myself as it was completely different from all the other rehab programs I had been doing for years. The route to a somewhat recovery from my Acquired Brain Injury meant a journey towards a new Self – along the path warped by a massive cognitive event, just as the curvature of space is caused by massive objects. It changes everything.
That path required a different look at my personal identity; my adaptation to different abilities; a re-definition of relationships, whether intimate or friendships; to find creative outlets; and explorations of new ways to see the world.
The Feuerstein Method will not get me precisely to that point, I guess I need more courage for that, but it did lay the foundation to see myself as more modifiable and adaptable to what I expected after my rehab.
I can only talk about my experience with the Feuerstein Method, but it has a much wider use. For example, it is taught in schools to teach children how to learn – as it is taught in my daughter’s former school in Melbourne.
The Feuerstein Method, can take years to complete. In the next blog I will peek at the Method itself. If you want to know more about brain plasticity, go to a TED talk.