That these diagrams are "bogus" is less interesting and important than the processes by which they got in the hands and eyes of educators, became accepted, common sense, and worked into practice. https://twitter.com/neilmosley5/status/1341762494352814082

You could write a great history of the role of diagrams, visualizations and infographics in shaping educational practice. They represent changing classifications of learning, and are hugely performative - they change what educators do.

First hand seen this "neuro-image" presented as the "growth mindset" brain "literally lighting up". Wrong obviously but more importantly how did this graphic travel into edu-consultancies and out to schools?

Google search "growth mindset brain" and you find even more persuasively authentic-looking neuro-graphics. As if learning is entirely embrained, or learning the entirety of education.

My interest isn't if these are wrong or right, but how psychological and neuroscientific ideas about learning got translated into simplified images that have so much power to shape how teachers think and act.

But these graphics of cognitive or neurological aspects of learning do become more consequntial if they are generated in real time and offered to the teacher via biometrics smart devices as a prompt for personalized education.

We are at the stage now where brainwaves can be visualized and delivered to the teacher synchronously. The diagram is now real-time and active in the classroom. This needs historicizing, and studying for its effects in practice.

The stakes are high here. Diagrams, graphics and visualizations are powerful in producing conviction, they're affectively alluring, they condense complexity for overworked professionals. They make learning and education possible to act on.