Pseudoneurocience and Professional Development in Education

It seems that professional development in early childhood education and elementary education is rife with pseudoneuroscience.  Or just plain ignorant babble, as in the case of Dan Hodgins claiming that there is an area of the brain called the "crockus" and that it is four times larger, from birth, in girls than in boys, and therefore boys "see the whole" while girls "see the details".

As Mark Liberman observes:

Let me point out here, again, is that the distributions are heavily overlapped, and that most of the subjects are in the overlapped region. The sex differences are interesting and worth further study, but it's nuts to prescribe on the basis of such evidence that our educational systems needs to treat boys and girls as if they were completely separate species.

Mr. Hodkins seems to be presenting his mistaken, bizarre views at a number of meetings.  I wonder how many naive, gullible teachers and administrators are going away convinced that the babble he is presenting is the truth?

Too bad there's no such thing as educational malpractice.

Meanwhile,  Mind Hacks has proposed:

The Dr Alfred Crockus Award for the Misuse of Neuroscience.

Links:

Language Log: How Big is Your Crockus?
Language Log: High Crockalorum
Language Log: Crosley Shelvador Comes in From the Cold
Language Log: Alfred Crockus and Crosley Shelvador
Joanne Jacobs: Its A Total Crockus
Body Impolitic: A Crockus of Sh**

Mind Hacks: Girls Have A Bigger Crockus

Comments

[bj]

This is funny. The crockus? for real? Or is was the originator making some kind of a joke, like "Some people say the crockus is much bigger in boys than girls, or is it the other way around" meaning that "some idiots say . . ."

[bj]

OK, I followed some of your links and am flabbergasted. This is for real? This guy gets to educate real teachers, who get to work with real kids?

[Joel Sax]

That's as in "crockus sh*t"?

[Slinkyguy]

First, I must tell you that a professor of mine showed Dr. Hodgins and his findings in our college childhood development class. The context was simply that boys and girls are different and therefore it is not in the best interest of the individuals education to have a structure on education that does not address the differences in decoding and behavior. I am a teacher in special education at an elementary school. Boys outnumber girls with behavioral and emotional disorders by 5 to 1. This at least shows that something is going on within the structure of school and culture to account for this disparity.