Customer Reviews

Unlock the Genius Within: Neurobiological Trauma, Teaching, and Transformative Learning

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A must-read for parents and educators of our times. Switching from teaching to learning and nurturing curiosity is the answer education is searching for! Add this book to your essential references... It's time to awaken our own curiosity and discovery, and share this book with friends and colleagues worldwide.

Written in a style accessible to the general reader, this volume is a good primer for those wishing to learn how effective learning via practical mentoring can be so much more rewarding to students, than standard `talk and chalk' teaching practice. Rather than aiding the reader towards `unlocking up their own genius', however, we are perhaps being informed instead of the ways in which one might help one's own students to do so. For the current reviewer, there is much to be gained from this book with regards shifting one's affective teaching style, methodology and effective pedagogical practice towards mentoring in determining student learning outcome (of which I am an adherent myself), but I remain skeptical of (and indeed rather puzzled by) Janik's premises and rationale for the methodology being proposed. For example, although I am readily convinced that mentoring by demonstration (via shared voyages of curiosity and discovery) with one's students are likely to be less traumatic than the mere rote-learning of content and method, I am not sure that `standard teaching practice' is really a trauma comparable to that of one's birth or instances of child sexual abuse in the way the Janik suggests in this book. Overtly Freudian, and keen to suggest that failing intellects may become so as a result of the repression (or suppression ?) of their owner's memorial and thought processes during `traumatic learning' in the classroom (!), the logic of Janik's argument here is not clearly operationalised within the examples he cites in his defense. In this sense, it is the current reviewer's opinion that the author is at best correct with respect to the case for mentoring (and its likelihood of success for potential genius students), but is perhaps correct for quite different (and unstated) reasons. I would also have preferred a different structure to have been used to introduce what is otherwise useful and informative content.

Sections concerned with the history of learning theories (from the ancient Greeks, through Darwin to behaviourism and the new cognitive revolution), the evolution of the nervous system, and brain imaging techniques are very valuable, and are made easily accessible to the lay reader in simple language. And although I wholly agree that the neurobiology of learning and memory (as we currently understand them) are greatly facilitated by the volitional, active engagement of self-motivated students who choose their mentors and role-models wisely, I am not convinced that one's `cognitive awakening' will only occur when one is `free of teachers' (p.47). For the same reason, I am unwilling to believe that the lack of post-natal memory or metacognition is the result of one's `birth trauma' (although early childhood amnesia admittedly remains an as yet unsolved enigma, I think it more likely the result of inadequately networked pre-frontal cortical substrate). Several other of my concerns include the need for improved referencing of the older literature (many early quotes do not match the cited references, or are entirely missing), and there are occasional errors of fact (e.g., Aristotle was not a student of Plato [p.3], but maybe that was intentional ?). In concluding, Janik's `7 Natural Laws of Transformative Learning' are both useful and acceptable tenets for future empirical study, but to date, Janik's own data and rationale (at least as presented in this book) remain unconvincing. The final chapter refers to case-study `proof-of-concept' data (and author-based websites for the reader to access), but little is shared here as to exactly `how' one might go about operationalising Janik's preferred mentoring approach.

Aside from my concerns for the particular arguments put forward in this book, I must recommend its inclusion on the reading list of any teachers and instructors wishing to explore the power of good mentoring, and its potential for enhancing the intellects of those willing to afford the luxury of such intimacy, time, and energy that is required for such potentially rewarding voyages of discovery.


Dr. Tony Dickinson
Global Choice Psychometrics/People Impact Consulting (Asia)
Hong Kong, SAR, China.

Janik, D. Unlock the Genius Within: Neurobiological Trauma, Teaching and Transformative Learning. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005. 208 pages. 10 Chapters. Referenced. Extensively Indexed. ISBN 1578862914.

Last year, Dr. Daniel S. Janik published his newest book, Unlock the Genius Within: Neurobiological Trauma, Teaching and Transformational Learning (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Education, 2005). The book is the second in a series on neurobiological-based learning, and it contains his general theory, tenets and description of neurobiologically-based transformative learning.

This novel learning theory is drawn extensively from his own experience first as a physician working with patients who experienced psychological trauma, and later as an educator and linguist in applying neurobiologically-based transformative learning in clinics, classrooms, and tutoring. In this inspiring book, Janik first discusses what is wrong with education and teaching methodologies in general, and then proceeds to discuss the traumatic roots of traditional teaching--how it ultimately results in loss of interest and creativity. He continues to describe the neurobiological foundations of a new form of nontraumatic learning - transformative learning--a "second learning pathway" (p.114). Janik claims that transformative learning is just as effective and yet free of its liabilities. He argues passionately and convincingly for replacing teaching with non-traumatic, curiosity-based, discovery-driven, mentor-assisted transformative learning to enable students to transform to learners, and teachers to mentors, and as a result of this change, "a new type of learner...[begins] to emerge" (p.164).

Janik believes that his "new" unified educational theory is so workable that it will be applicable not only in the classroom but also in tutoring and distance learning situations. Exciting and intriguing! However, since this theory is still in its "infancy" stage, though having been applied quite successfully in the TOEFL program (specifically TOEFL II and III at Intercultural Communications College (ICC)), more ethnographic and quantitative studies are needed to fully delineate its applicability and measure its success in other classrooms as well as in distance learning.

I found Janik's characterization of mentorship particularly innovative and intriguing. In the book, he writes,
"Tearing apart learned expectations evokes anxiety and even fear. Yet that's all it is: emotions and feelings. The best mentors openly acknowledge these emotions and feelings, relegate them clearly to prediscovery discomfort, and "hold the fort"--keep seeking--until the pop-up or-out phenomenon occurs and awakens discovery" (p.169). Moreover, he argues that, unlike teachers, mentors do not always have to have an answer or be correct as some of the most powerful learning opportunities occur when mentors do not know the answer. "Transformational mentors don't need a `bag of tricks,' but they do need to be aware of not only the processes, but also the limits of neurobiological learning" (p.155). Unfortunately, there is no provision of detailed, step-by-step instructions as to how to transition from teacher to this new kind of mentor.

This neurobiologically-based nontraumatic, transformational learning theory sounds like it should be a complicated and difficult-to-comprehend concept. To my amazement, the book is not only inspiring and thought-provoking but also interesting to read and surprisingly easy to understand. This is because throughout this book, the author uses humor and incorporates anecdotes that illustrate various facets of transformational learning.

This book should be of interest to teachers in a wide variety of disciplines including, of course, English as a Second Language. Administrators, counselors, parents, students, and researchers will also find the book both fascinating and illuminating. According to the author, "...this neurobiological theory will eventually prove to be the long-sought-after unifying theory underlying all effective educational as well as traditional classroom teaching theories and methods..." (p.176). High claims indeed, but ones that the reader comes away excited to see fulfilled rather than skeptical as to their eventual fulfillment.

Wonderful book and very easy to read. Was very helpful in a research paper I am working on.