There is an uncomfortable contradiction emerging in education. We know more about children’s brains than ever before. We understand the importance of movement, relationships, belonging, motivation, creativity and emotional regulation. Yet in many classrooms, children are being asked to sit for longer, concentrate for longer and complete more teacher-directed academic work.
As pressure around achievement increases, the subjects and experiences that bring many children alive, such as music, movement, creativity, play, nature and the arts, are often the first things squeezed out. However, what if these experiences are not distractions from learning? What if they help create the biological conditions that make learning possible?
Before Children Are Learners, They Are Mammals
Before children are readers, writers, mathematicians or students, they are mammals. They arrive in our classrooms with nervous systems that are continually gathering information about the environment around them. Their brains are working to determine whether they are safe, whether they belong, whether they are capable and whether the effort being asked of them feels worthwhile.
These judgements are not necessarily conscious, but they influence how readily a child can pay attention, take a risk, persevere through difficulty and learn something new. A beautifully planned lesson cannot reach a child who is completely overwhelmed, disconnected or mentally exhausted. Curriculum tells us what children need to learn; understanding the brain helps us create the conditions in which that learning is more likely to happen.
Understanding the NeuroChems Model
The NeuroChems model focuses on four neurochemicals involved in aspects of motivation, connection, mood, effort and learning: dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin and endorphins. The model provides educators with four useful lenses through which to consider the environments and learning experiences we create for children.
The brain is, of course, enormously complex. These neurochemicals do not work independently, and each has many different functions throughout the brain and body. Dopamine is not simply a reward chemical, oxytocin does more than create connection, serotonin cannot accurately be reduced to status, and endorphins are not merely chemicals that make us feel happy. These descriptions may be useful as memory hooks, but they are not complete scientific definitions. Nor can teachers simply press a button and release one particular chemical in a child’s brain.
The practical value of the model lies in the questions it prompts us to ask. Are children experiencing progress? Do they feel connected to the people around them? Do they know that their contribution matters? Are their bodies given enough opportunities to move, release tension and reset?
Dopamine: Progress Creates Motivation
Dopamine plays an important role in motivation, anticipation and goal-directed behaviour. It helps generate the drive to move towards something. In the classroom, this means children need more than a distant outcome; they need to be able to see the next achievable step.
Consider a child who is presented with a full page of writing and immediately thinks, “I can’t do this.” Now consider the same child being guided through a clear process: first say the idea, then write one strong sentence, check it and build from there. The learning is not necessarily easier, but the pathway is visible and the next step feels manageable.
We can support motivation by breaking complex learning into achievable stages, providing timely feedback and helping children recognise their own improvement. This is not about making every task easy or handing out constant prizes. Too many external rewards can shift children’s attention away from the deeper satisfaction that comes from competence and mastery.
Children need regular opportunities to recognise that they can now do something they could not do before. They also need adults who acknowledge the behaviours and strategies that contributed to that progress. We might notice that a child remained focused when the task became difficult, changed strategy when the first approach did not work or completed each step needed to reach a goal.
Progress creates momentum. When children can see that their effort is taking them somewhere, they are more likely to remain engaged and willing to try again.
Oxytocin: Connection Makes Learning Safer
Oxytocin is associated with bonding, trust and close social relationships. Within the NeuroChems model, it reminds us that connection is not separate from learning. It is one of the conditions that supports it.
A child who feels unsafe, rejected or under threat has fewer mental resources available for curiosity, flexible thinking and problem-solving. This does not mean that children must feel comfortable or happy every moment. Learning involves uncertainty, mistakes, correction and challenge. Children do, however, need to know that the adults around them are predictable, steady and on their side.
Connection is often built through small, repeated interactions. Greeting a child by name, sharing humour, noticing when something is different, listening before responding and repairing the relationship after a difficult interaction can all strengthen a child’s sense of safety and belonging.
Connection is also built when children work successfully with others. Collaborative challenges, team games, buddy learning, shared performances, kapa haka and meaningful group projects give children the experience of being part of something larger than themselves. When a group works towards a shared goal, each member has an opportunity to contribute to a collective outcome.
Importantly, connection does not mean permissiveness. Children feel safest when adults are both warm and clear. Strong relationships and firm boundaries are not opposites. Together, they communicate that a child belongs and that the adults around them will help keep the environment safe.
Serotonin: Children Need to Know They Matter
Serotonin has complex roles in mood, cognition and many processes throughout the body. Within the NeuroChems model, it prompts us to consider children’s experiences of confidence, significance and value.
Children need opportunities to experience themselves as capable, helpful and important members of their community. This is different from offering constant praise. If every piece of work is described as amazing, praise quickly loses its meaning. Specific acknowledgement helps a child understand what they did and why it mattered.
A teacher might acknowledge that a child noticed when someone needed help, set an example that helped a group settle, used a personal strength to improve a shared project or took responsibility without being asked. This kind of feedback directs attention towards the child’s contribution rather than simply offering a broad judgement of the child.
Classroom responsibilities, peer support, leadership, service and genuine opportunities to contribute can all strengthen a child’s sense of value. However, we need to look carefully at who receives these opportunities. If the same confident, compliant or academically successful children are always chosen to lead, other forms of competence remain invisible.
Some children lead from the front, while others organise, create, care, encourage, explain, notice or quietly help. All children need authentic opportunities to discover that their contribution matters. The message is not simply that each child is special; it is that each child is an important member of the group and capable of making a meaningful difference.
Endorphins: Children Have Bodies That Need to Move
Endorphins are involved in the body’s response to pain and stress and contribute to some of the positive feelings associated with physical activity and laughter. Their place in the NeuroChems model reminds us of something obvious that education frequently overlooks: children have bodies, and those bodies were designed to move.
Movement supports far more than physical fitness. It can help children regulate their energy, release tension, reset their attention and return to learning. A moving child is not always an off-task child; sometimes movement is what makes sustained attention possible.
This does not mean abandoning explicit teaching or turning every mathematics lesson into a physical education session. Movement might involve acting out a concept, using actions to support recall, practising facts while moving, standing to discuss an idea, including short movement resets or taking learning outside.
Movement also occurs through sport, exercise, dance, waiata and music. These experiences allow children to apply physical effort, coordinate their bodies, persist through challenge and experience the satisfaction of doing something demanding. Instead of continually asking how we can keep children sitting for longer, we should consider what their bodies need so their brains can return to learning.
Using the Six NeuroTools
To turn this understanding into everyday practice, I developed six NeuroTools: connection, movement, nature, music, creativity and mindfulness. These are not six additional programmes to squeeze into an already overcrowded timetable. Teachers do not need another collection of disconnected initiatives. Instead, the NeuroTools provide six lenses through which we can strengthen what we are already doing.
Connection can be built into classroom routines, collaborative learning and the way relationships are repaired following conflict. Movement can support transitions, memory, oral language and academic practice. Nature might involve taking a lesson outside, caring for something living or pausing to notice the world beyond the classroom walls.
Music can support memory, language, transitions, cultural identity and shared enjoyment. Creativity gives children opportunities to generate ideas, experiment, solve problems and communicate their understanding in different ways. Mindfulness helps children notice what is happening within them and create a pause before responding.
The NeuroTools frequently overlap. Singing together may involve music, connection, movement and regulated breathing at the same time. Creating something outdoors may combine nature, creativity, collaboration and focused attention. A school garden can offer nature, movement, responsibility, teamwork and visible progress, while kapa haka can bring together music, movement, connection, effort, cultural identity and shared pride.
These experiences should not be viewed as separate from real learning. They help create the conditions in which real learning can occur.
More Teaching Time Does Not Automatically Mean More Learning
We need to challenge the assumption that the only valuable minute is one spent on direct academic instruction. More time allocated to literacy does not automatically produce more literacy learning. If children are disengaged, dysregulated or cognitively exhausted, additional seated instruction may give us more teaching time on paper without providing more effective learning time.
The quality of the teaching matters, but so do the readiness, relationships and internal state of the learner. This is not an argument against structure, explicit instruction, a knowledge-rich curriculum or high expectations. Children deserve excellent teaching and access to essential knowledge. They also need movement, relationships, creativity, music, nature, laughter and opportunities to contribute.
We should not have to choose between academic rigour and developmentally responsive practice. The challenge facing schools is to protect both.
Teachers Are Mammals Too
We cannot discuss children’s neurochemical needs without acknowledging the adults in the room. Teachers also need connection, visible progress, meaningful recognition, movement and a sense that their work matters.
Teachers need more than token wellbeing initiatives. They need realistic workloads, professional trust, strong collegial relationships, useful feedback and leaders who understand the daily reality of classroom teaching. A wellbeing programme cannot compensate for systems and expectations that repeatedly leave people depleted.
The nervous systems of adults help shape the environment experienced by children. A calm, connected and supported teacher has far greater capacity to be the steady adult children need. An overwhelmed teacher cannot be expected to regulate an entire classroom indefinitely through goodwill and personal resilience alone. If we want regulated, engaged and motivated learners, we must also build schools in which the adults can thrive.
Creating the Conditions for Learning
As educators consider their own classrooms and schools, there are four useful questions to ask. Where do learners experience progress? Where do they experience genuine connection? Where do they feel capable, useful and valued? Where do their bodies have opportunities to move, create, play and reset?
We should then ask the same questions about the adults. Teachers also need to experience progress, connection and recognition, and they need sufficient space and support to remain well.
Our learners are not empty vessels waiting for curriculum content. They are developing human mammals with brains that seek safety, connection, progress, purpose, movement and belonging. When we combine strong teaching with a genuine understanding of the humans in front of us, we do more than increase engagement and achievement. We help children experience themselves as capable learners, valued community members and people who want to keep growing.
That is what it means to educate mammals.
Bring Brain Essentials Into Your Classroom or Home
If this way of understanding children resonates with you, explore Brain Essentials for practical tools that turn the science into everyday action. Discover My Amazing Brain, the Brainbow resources and simple ways to bring more connection, movement, nature, music, creativity and mindfulness into children’s lives.