When children have their say in the publication process

With Frontiers for Young Minds, 8- to 15-year-olds review articles written by lead scientists, to make sure they are clearly understandable by a young audience.

The Collection Everything you and your teachers need to know about the learning brain aims to provide children with all the relevant knowledge about the brain to understand themselves and their learning processes better, and to equip them to distinguish myths and facts. All the articles are published in open access.

Members of the Centre for Educational Neuroscience contributed to the Collection as Editors (Dr. Jessica Massonnié) and Authors. Notably, Prof. Michael Thomas and Dr. Victoria Knowland wrote a paper to explain three common Neuro-myths in the Classroom, namely that: (1) Intelligence is fixed; (2) Girls and Boys Think Differently; (3) Some children are ‘left-brained’ and some are ‘right-brained’. Their child-friendly article mirrors the corresponding adult versions featured on our Neuro-hit / Neuro-myth webpage.

The Collection will be translated into German, Spanish, Portuguese and French. Collection Editor Nienke van Atteveldt went into the classroom to work on the Dutch translation of the articles. She recalls:

“It was delightful to see how eager children are to learn how everything works. A common answer to the question ‘why is this important for you to know?’ was ‘Because it is about me’. It helps them to understand themselves, how wonderful is that!”

-> Everything you and your teachers need to know about the learning brain <-