(April 21, 2010) Nathan Woodling and Anthony Chung-Ming Ng give a broad overview of the field of neuroscience and how it relates to human biology. They discuss the different lobes of the brain and the cells within as well as neuropharmacology and re-uptake.

(April 28, 2010) Robert Sapolsky continues the exploration of endocrinology and neurology. He looks at more complicated systems of communication within neurobiology, the limbic system's role in personality and behavior, abnormal behavior possibilities within these systems, and individual organism variation and imprinting.

"And so we find ourselves in the position of having narrowed our view of curriculum from the promise of a broad social, emotional and intellectual experience (in theory) to the mere acquisition of information; over time, and under controlled conditions.Age appropriate even. Students’ status in school depends on how much of this information they demonstrably possess. Fear is the driving force. Will they be employable? As for the resultant teacher education: it is quick, cheap and scale-able, but it has also meant that teachers are no longer aware of their cultural value. They are merely parts of a machine. Their intellectual life has been subsumed by the weight of administration required to transmit the contents of curriculum in a measurable way. Their professional development consists of training to do that one thing better. Minor adjustments, or slight changes in operational methodology, are hailed as ‘teaching & learning innovations’, probably because the average teacher is not aware of the rich history of every aspect of human scholarship, the study of learning being only one of those aspects. In addition, teachers may or may not be aware that the transfer process they are involved in is not neutral. Systematized schooling is primarily about socialization, not learning for its own sake, and it was designed to be this way." Portion of the transcript of a presentation at the 21st Century Learning Conference in Hong Kong 13/12/2014 To paraphrase Paulo Freire, “Education either functions as an instrument which… brings about conformity, or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.” Video source : Noam Chomsky speaks about language and philosophy as part of the Dean's Lecture Series from UMD College of Arts & Humanities . Date of Event: Thu, 1/26/12

"A Conversation with Noam Chomsky" was hosted at the 2015 Tucson Festival of Books on March 15 in partnership with the University of Arizona's College of Social and Behavioral Sciences and The Nation magazine . “The race towards disaster is being carried out with almost euphoric intensity,” said Chomsky. Chomsky maintains that meaningful change requires a democratic awakening. “Democracy is a threat to any power system,” he said.