Mirrors in Our Minds – Why Are We Drawn to Cheerful People?
A smile we see on someone’s face brings us pleasure.
When we watch a person holding a hammer and a painting in a heavy frame, we instantly know what their next move will be.
This happens because our brains recreate the states we observe in others, using what are known as mirror mechanisms.
Thanks to these mechanisms, a teacher’s engagement becomes contagious for students—and likewise, a teacher absorbs the emotional tone of the classroom.
Understanding how mirror systems work offers a fascinating new lens through which to view education.
Dr Marek Kaczmarzyk
Dr. Marek Kaczmarzyk, Professor at the University of Silesia – biologist, neuroeducation specialist, and memeticist; teacher, lecturer, and theorist of education, as well as author of numerous publications and books on the biology of learning.
His most notable works include The Tension Zone: A Natural History of Conflict with a Teenager, Unique: The Biology of Individuality, and The School of Memes: Toward Evolutionary Didactics.
He offers a fresh perspective on education through the lens of the latest discoveries in neurobiology and is a leading advocate of evolutionary didactics—an approach that applies mechanisms of both biological and cultural evolution to better understand learning and education.
For over a decade, he has led lectures and trainings attended by more than 30,000 educators across Poland.
