Developmental Relations Among Mind, Brain and Education : Essays in Honor of Robbie Case

Robert S. Siegler Robbie Case: A Modern Classic About 15 years ago, Robbie asked me what I thought of a talk we had just heard. I indicated that I hadn’t much liked it and noted several serious problems. Robbie agreed with all of the criticisms, but said that he nonetheless liked the talk, because there was one good idea in it that he could use. I agreed with him that the idea was a good one, but it took me a while to understand the wisdom of his position. If there’s one useful idea in a talk, then hearing it has been worthwhile, even if the talk also has numerous de?ciencies. On that day and on many others, talking with Robbie changed my thinking for the better. Robbie Case was in many ways a classic developmental psychologist of the old school. The depth and breadth of his theory; the range of age groups, populations, and topics that he studied; and his efforts to connect theory and application are all reminiscent of the greats of the past: Baldwin, Dewey, Piaget, Vygotsky, and Bruner.

This book explores the intersection of neuroscience, cognitive science and education and its importance for understanding human development. It is also a tribute to the great developmental psychologist Robbie Case, who was professor at the Institute of Child Study at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Education and only 55 years old at the time of his death in the year 2000. The book presents cutting edge work in a field that is now of growing importance, with its own international society (IMBES) and its own journal Mind, Brain and Education, continuing Case’s seminal work.

Contributors to this volume, many of whom are former students and colleagues of Robbie Case, represent some of the leading researchers in developmental psychology. They were asked to explore the interface between mind, brain, and education during development. The subjects they examine range from science education to parenting, bullying, and personal development. Chapters are written in a style that makes them accessible both to teachers and graduate students, and in fact to anyone intrigued by the ways in which neuroscience, cognitive science and education inform one another. The volume also contains a wealth of detail that experts will find informative and thought-provoking. Overall, the book shows both what has been accomplished in this emerging field, as well as the exciting work that remains to be done studying the developmental relations between mind, brain, and education.