Humanists UK held the Blackham Lecture online on 19 November, delivered by Professor Paul Howard-Jones. The lecture explored how scientific insights into learning, emotion, and behaviour can help us confront one of the largest challenges of our time: climate change.
From neuromyths to the science of how we learn
Paul opened by taking aim at long-standing misconceptions about the brain and learning — so-called neuromyths — which continue to influence classrooms despite decades of research disproving them. Myths such as ‘left-brain/right-brain’ thinking, ‘learning styles’, and rigid ‘critical periods’ for development, he argued, persist because they begin with grains of scientific truth that are stretched into sweeping claims.
He showed how genuine findings often get distorted into simplistic classroom rules. These myths, he said, ‘sound teacherly but don’t help anybody learn.’ The real science is richer: learning strengthens neural representations, retrieval consolidates memory, and prior knowledge must be activated if new ideas are to stick.
Paul also challenged the widespread assumption that emotion and cognition sit on opposite sides of a divide. Evolution, he explained, tells a different story. Over hundreds of millions of years, emotional and cognitive systems have become tightly integrated. Emotion is not separate from thinking, he argued; it is part of the architecture of learning itself.
Climate change demands climate action
Turning to climate education, Paul argued that schools cannot rely on simply adding more scientific facts to the curriculum. Climate change is ‘an action issue,’ he said, and action depends on motivation, future-thinking, social norms, and emotional engagement – processes familiar to both psychology and neuroscience but rarely addressed in schools.
Drawing on research from UNESCO and the UNFCCC’s Action for Climate Empowerment framework, he outlined how climate education must increasingly focus on real-world engagement. Younger children might begin with school gardens and conservation projects, while older students should take on community action, local campaigning, and public engagement.
Stories, he suggested in response to a question, may be one of the most powerful tools for engaging these future-thinking systems. Notably, stories with unresolved endings are more likely to motivate action than those that conclude with comforting reassurances. ‘If everything ends well,’ he said, ‘people switch off. Uncertainty keeps us moving.’
Cross-curricular teaching and the importance of imagination
Asked how teachers can embed climate education into an already overloaded system, Paul advocated a cross-curricular approach. Climate themes, he said, can be explored not only in science and geography, but also in mathematics, English, art, and design. As well as simply adding extra content, teachers could also strengthen climate change education by weaving climate contexts into what’s already being taught. When students encounter the same ideas across different subjects and in varied contexts, their learning becomes deeper and more meaningful.
After a wide-ranging Q&A chaired by science communicator and Humanists UK patron Ginny Smith, Paul was presented with the 2025 Blackham Lecture Medal in recognition of his rigorous work debunking false ideas about the brain and human learning, and for his innovative application of the science of mind to tackling the climate crisis
Notes
About Professor Paul Howard-Jones
Paul Howard-Jones is Professor of Neuroscience and Education at the School of Education, University of Bristol, with degrees in engineering and psychology, and a PhD in medical physics. He was a teacher before becoming a trainer of primary and secondary school teachers and an inspector of schools. His research has focused on issues at the interface of cognitive neuroscience and educational theory, practice, and policy. He applies diverse research methods, from neurocomputational imaging studies to classroom observations, to understand learning processes.
He is particularly interested in addressing neuromyths, understanding the creative brain and how games and learning games engage their players, and exploring how insights from the science of learning can inform climate change education. He was a member of the Royal Society’s working group on Neuroscience and Education. His broadcasting work includes Channel 4’s BAFTA-nominated series The Secret Life of Four Year Olds, and he presents the podcast Mind, Brain and Planet, which draws on psychology and neuroscience to understand our relationship with sustainability and the environment.
About Ginny Smith
A science writer and presenter with expertise in psychology and neuroscience, Ginny has a talent for making the complex comprehensible and a passion for brain science. She has co-written five highly illustrated books for DK publishing, including How the Brain Works and 1,000 Amazing Human Body Facts, and has had articles featured in publications from BBC Science Focus to the Telegraph. Her latest book for adults, Overloaded: How every aspect of your life is influenced by your brain chemicals, published by Bloomsbury, was chosen as one of the ‘Books to read in 2021’ by New Scientist.
Ginny founded Braintastic! Science, which produces spectacular science shows and resources to help young people understand and get the best out of their brains. She is regularly found on stage at schools, festivals, and events, and relishes answering kids’ questions about the brain, from why we dream, to whether doctors could ever do a brain transplant.
She also teaches at the University of Cambridge’s Professional and Continuing Education, and is a regular blogger and video presenter for the Cosmic Shambles Network.
About the Blackham Lecture
The Blackham Lecture explores an aspect of education, lifelong development, or childhood that relates to humanism, and can be philosophical, practical, or social in its focus. The lecture and its accompanying medal are named for Harold Blackham, an educationist and pioneering activist who was the first executive director of Humanists UK and the first general secretary of Humanists International. The Blackham medallist is awarded to an individual who has made a significant contribution to the field of education or humanist philosophical inquiry.