John Medina's Brain Rules Revisited: How Neuroscience Can Transform Classrooms And Workplaces Of The Future Neuroscience Meets Social And Emotional Learning podcast

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John Medina's Brain Rules Revisited: How Neuroscience Can Transform Classrooms and Workplaces of the Future

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Episode 370 reviews Dr. John Medina's insights from Brain Rules and explores how neuroscience and social-emotional learning combine to improve teaching, learning, and well-being.

Key takeaways: teachers need basic neuroscience to support learning; the emotional stability of the home strongly shapes a child’s resilience and confidence; and children build resilience when adults co-regulate and model healthy emotion management during high-emotion moments.

This short review highlights practical steps for educators, parents, and leaders to apply brain-based strategies and SEL to boost student outcomes and lifelong skills.

EP 370 covers a review of Dr. John Medina's Brain Rules, from EP 42 (February 2020)

We learned:

✔ If education is about the brain, then teachers need to understand how the brain learns best.

✔ A child’s resilience and confidence are deeply tied to the emotional climate of the home.

✔ Children build resilience not in calm moments, but in how parents (or caregivers) respond when emotions run high.

Welcome back to SEASON 14 of The Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast, where we connect the science-based evidence behind social and emotional learning and emotional intelligence training for improved well-being, achievement, productivity and results—using what I saw as the missing link (since we weren’t taught this when we were growing up in school), the application of practical neuroscience.

I’m Andrea Samadi, and seven years ago, launched this podcast with a question I had never truly asked myself before: (and that is) If productivity and results matter to us—and they do now more than ever—how exactly are we using our brain to make them happen?

Most of us were never taught how to apply neuroscience to improve productivity, results, or well-being. About a decade ago, I became fascinated by the mind-brain-results connection—and how science can be applied to our everyday lives.

That’s why I’ve made it my mission to bring you the world’s top experts—so together, we can explore the intersection of science and social-emotional learning. We’ll break down complex ideas and turn them into practical strategies we can use every day for predictable, science-backed results.

Episode 370: Brain Rules and the Future of Learning

For today’s Episode 370[i], we continue our journey into the mind with our next interview review—Dr. John Medina, author of the well-known book Brain Rules. We first featured Dr. Medina in EP 42, when we explored “Implementing Brain Rules in Schools and Workplaces of the Future.”

To remind you where we began with our interview review series: We opened with EP 366[ii], diving into speaker Bob Proctor’s timeless principles. Bob was the very first person—over 25 years ago—who challenged me with the question, “What do you really want to do with your life?” At the time, I didn’t have a clear answer. It’s taken well over 25 years now for this clarity to evolve.

Eventually, I realized what mattered most to me: and that was bringing social and emotional learning (SEL) skills into schools. I had already seen how these skills—once called “soft skills”—transformed the lives of 12 teenagers I worked with in the motivational speaking industry in the late 1990s. Later, I watched as SEL spread into schools across states and countries, until the research became undeniable.

A 2011 meta-analysis of 213 studies confirmed what I had seen firsthand a decade before this study was released: students who participated in SEL programs showed an 11-percentile-point increase in academic performance[iii] compared to control groups. That’s a significant improvement, demonstrating just how powerful SEL can be. Long before this research, I simply knew these skills could shape the future of the next generation.

This podcast itself was built around the six core SEL competencies—each explored in its own dedicated episode that you can find in our resource section in the show notes.

Then came the next step: adding the lens of neuroscience. I realized that everything we were studying in SEL connected back to how the brain works. My deep dive into what I called “Neuroscience 101” began when an educator handed me a stack of books that opened my eyes to the importance of brain science in education. From those early hand-drawn sketches grew the framework that still guides this podcast today—bridging SEL and neuroscience to make learning both practical and powerful.

Which brings us to today’s review: Episode 370, where we revisit Dr. John Medina. At the heart of this conversation is the very question that launched my journey years ago: What happens when we connect social and emotional learning with neuroscience? How can understanding the brain not only improve results and productivity, but also better equip our next generation of students in the classroom?

It was John Medina’s Brain Rules that first landed on my bookshelf back in 2009. And to be honest—it just sat there for a while. I wasn’t ready yet. As Dr. Medina himself has said, this kind of learning can’t be forced. You need a strong why to really dive into the mind–brain connection.

For me, that why came later, when I realized how deeply understanding the brain could impact learning, teaching, and even life itself. If you’re following along with this podcast, I imagine you’ve had a similar moment—when the connection between the brain and practical neuroscience suddenly made sense and became something worth pursuing.

I’m always curious about what that moment looks like for others—what it is that makes this topic click. For me, it became clear during my very first presentation on this subject in November 2017, at a conference for the York Region School District in Toronto. The topic I was in charge of presenting was Stress, Learning, and the Brain, and the room was so full it was standing room only. This was after just three years of studying the topic myself, and when I first opened up David Souza’s How the Brain Learns Series, I honestly thought this topic was over my head, and too difficult for me to understand, let alone having me teach it to others. But once there is a strong why, the way will be shown. And that day, when I saw how many people showed up to learn the topic, I knew this was the field I wanted to dedicate the rest of my life to—continuing to learn, and helping others understand and apply to their lives.

VIDEO 1 Click Here to Watch

Now that you know where this mind-brain connection began for me, I hope you can gain clarity with why it’s so important to you. Important enough that you are tuning into this podcast to learn more.

Wouldn’t you know it—understanding this WHY with the brain-mind connection to thrive at home, work and school and with sport is exactly what Dr. John Medina said to me during our interview back in February 2020. If you click the link in the show notes, you can watch VIDEO 1, where he explains:

“I believe that the cognitive neurosciences should be at the table of education training. Before you get a Bachelor Degree in Education, you have to have a fair degree of neuroscience. And it’s a very specific slice—it’s the kind of neuroscience that says: this is what we know about how the brain learns. Because teachers are in charge of that. It blows me away sometimes—I look at the Colleges of Education: if you’re in the Geology Department, you study rocks. If you go to Medical School, you study humans. You could argue that the world of education is all about studying the brain. Where are the courses that say—‘This is how memory works. This is how we get someone to pay attention. This is what visual processing looks like.’”

Dr. Medina is 100% right. When I went through teacher training at The University of Toronto, courses like this weren’t offered.

Fast forward to today, and my daily work now focuses on supporting educators with the Science of Reading—a body of research that, much like SEL, took decades to gain traction but is finally reshaping classrooms and teacher training, impacting how we teach our next generation of students to read.

Of course, this knowledge can’t just be forced on us. It’s not easy material—it requires effort to learn. But if you’re listening to this podcast each week, it’s because you’re curious. You’re willing to dig into concepts that, until recently, were reserved for medical students.

That’s how Dr. Douglas Fisher gained his insights into how the brain learns best. As he told me in EP 161[iv], How Learning Works: Translating the Science of Learning into Strategies for Maximum Learning in Your Classroom, he actually sat in classes with medical students to develop a deeper understanding of brain-based learning—knowledge we were never given in traditional teacher training.

Key Point from Video Clip 1 from John Medina 💡 If education is about the brain, then teachers need to understand how the brain learns best.

Tip #1 – Practical Application: Look for opportunities—whether through professional learning, books, or resources like this podcast—to bridge the gap between neuroscience and classroom practice. Even small shifts, like applying what we know about memory or attention, can transform how students learn.

Don’t let the complexity of the human brain intimidate you, like it did me when I first saw Dr. David Souza’s books. Once you can make this mind-brain-learning connection, you’ll see that it was all worth the effort to learn and understand.

VIDEO 2 Click Here to Watch

Moving on to our second interview clip (linked in the show notes), I asked Dr. Medina a powerful question: “How can we raise our children to be confident and resilient?”

His response was both profound and eye-opening: He said:

“I believe that the single greatest predictor of a child’s psychopathology or psychiatric condition is the emotional stability of the home in which they are raised. It automatically becomes an education issue, even if you don’t want it to be. Because I realize that the interpersonal dynamics inside some of these homes is usually nobody’s business—except when the kid gets nicked. And then it might be important to understand, and perhaps teach adults, how to be adults in front of their children. We know a fair amount about what it takes to create stable, emotional homes. Let’s say there’s a partner involved. The great work of John Gottman is so strong, he can actually predict divorce rates.”

Key Point from Video Clip 2 from John Medina: 💡A child’s resilience and confidence are deeply tied to the emotional climate of the home. Stability in relationships, especially between parents or caregivers, creates the foundation for healthy development.

Practical Application:

For parents and caregivers: Focus on modeling emotional regulation and respectful communication at home. Children learn resilience not from being shielded from challenges, but by watching adults navigate them with stability. For educators: Understand that a student’s academic and social behavior often reflects what’s happening at home. Approaching challenges with empathy—and building strong, safe classroom relationships—can help buffer instability. For leaders and mentors: Whether in schools, workplaces, or communities, promoting emotional intelligence and modeling healthy relationships can positively influence not only children, but the adults raising them.

VIDEO 3 Click Here to Watch

To go deeper into my question about raising emotionally resilient children, Dr. Medina pointed to the work of Diana Baumrind, whose research he described as “probably the most important work about how to raise a child that exists.” She showed that creating an emotionally stable environment can directly influence anxiety and depression rates in children.

Dr. Medina added that John Gottman—known for his research on marriage—also studied parenting. Both Baumrind and Gottman came to the same conclusion:

“All parenting rises and falls on the same battlefield, and that’s what you do when your child’s emotions run hot. What you do here puts you in a behavioral category—some kind of parenting style.”

Key Point from Video Clip 3 from John Medina: 💡 Children build resilience not in calm moments, but in how parents (or caregivers) respond when emotions run high. These moments define parenting style and shape a child’s long-term emotional health.

Practical Application:

When your child is upset, instead of reacting with anger or dismissal, focus on co-regulation—help them name and navigate their feelings. Practice emotion coaching (a Gottman strategy): acknowledge the emotion, set boundaries if needed, and guide the child toward healthy expression. Remember: resilience grows when children see that emotions—even big ones—can be understood, managed, and resolved with stability.

These strategies tie back into our 6 social and emotional learning solo episodes that I’ve linked in the show notes, as well as with Greg Wolcott from EP 7[v] on “Building Relationships in Today’s Classrooms” or Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence’s Founder Marc Brackett’s work from EP 19[vi] on his book Permission to Feel. As we continue with this review, I’m hoping that we strengthen the WHY behind our own work whether we are teachers in the classroom, coaches, or regular people like me who want take this mind-brain connection to improve our results to greater heights.

REVIEW and CONCLUSION

As we wrap up Episode 370, it’s clear that Dr. John Medina’s call to bring neuroscience to the table of education is more important now than ever. We began this journey with Bob Proctor’s timeless question, “What do you really want?”—and for me, that answer was always rooted in seeing social and emotional learning become a foundation in our schools. Over the years, research confirmed what I witnessed firsthand: SEL transforms lives. But when we add the powerful lens of neuroscience, we gain the practical tools to understand how the brain learns best—knowledge that can improve results, productivity, and most importantly, support our next generation of students.

In today’s EP we reviewed 3 VIDEO CLIPS

Key Point 1: 💡 If education is about the brain, then teachers need to understand how the brain learns best.

Key Point 2: A child’s resilience and confidence are deeply tied to the emotional climate of the home. Stability in relationships, especially between parents or caregivers, creates the foundation for healthy development.

Practical Application:

Key Point 3: Children build resilience not in calm moments, but in how parents (or caregivers, or even teachers) respond when emotions run high. These moments define our parenting (and teaching) style and shape a child’s long-term emotional health.

Practical Application:

When your child is upset, instead of reacting with anger or dismissal, focus on co-regulation—help them name and navigate their feelings. This is especially important whether we are a parent, or working with students in the classroom.

Dr. Medina’s Brain Rules was a pivotal book for me—it helped me understand how the brain learns best, while also reinforcing the importance of self-regulation. And as we explored last week with Dr. Dawson Church and his Bliss Brain meditations, self-regulation becomes much more accessible when we actively train our brain through practices like meditation.

Each of these interviews connects and builds on the other, guiding us step by step on this Journey of the Mind.

We’ll continue exploring this powerful intersection of social and emotional learning and neuroscience, bringing forward leading experts so that together we can learn and apply insights that were once reserved only for medical students. This is how we equip ourselves—and the next generation—to thrive not only in learning, but also in life.

With that thought, thank you for joining me for Episode 370. I’ll see you next week as we move on to our next expert interview review. Have a wonderful week ahead.

RESOURCES:

Watch FULL Interview with John Medina https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFzg5nQnEMs

YouTube Short 1 https://www.youtube.com/shorts/dZg4PEAVcdE

YouTube Short 2 https://www.youtube.com/shorts/YHdLlHtjBfo

YouTube Short 3 https://www.youtube.com/shorts/vdiOCZWWvuc

Solo Episodes on the 6 SEL Competencies

Self-Awareness: Know Thyself https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/self-awareness-know-thyself/

Social-Awareness: How to Change Your Social Brain https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/social-awareness-looking-beyond-yourself-to-connect-with-others/

Developing Effective Relationships https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/how-to-build-and-sustain-effective-relationships/

Responsible Decision-Making https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/responsible-decision-making-begins-with-brain-health/

Self-Regulation: The Foundational Learning Skill for Future Success https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/self-regulation-the-foundational-learning-skill-for-future-success/

Coaching a Growth Mindset https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/coaching-a-growth-mindset-strategies-for-overcoming-obstacles-and-cognitive-biases/

REFERENCES:

[i] Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE 42 with Dr. John Medina on “Implementing Brain Rules in Schools and Workplaces of the Future” https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/dr-john-medina-on-implementing-brain-rules-in-the-schools-and-workplaces-of-the-future/

[ii]Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE 366 REVIEW PART 1: Unlocking Your Potential: Refining Goals with Bob Proctor’s Wisdom https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/unlocking-your-potential-redefining-goals-with-bob-proctors-wisdom/

[iii] www.casel.org

[iv] Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE161 “How Learning Works: Translating the Science of Learning into Strategies for Maximum Learning in Your Classroom” https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/johnalmarodedouglas-fisherand-nancyfreyon-how-learning-works-translatingthescience-oflearningintostrategiesformaximum-learning-inyourclassroom/

[v] Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE 7 with Greg Wolcott on “Building Relationships in Today’s Classrooms” https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/greg-wolcott-on-building-relationships-in-todays-classrooms/

[vi]Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE 19 with Marc Brackett on “Permission to Feel” https://andreasamadi.podbean.com/e/founding-director-of-the-yale-center-of-emotional-intelligence-on-his-new-book-permission-to-feel/

374 episodes

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