Nobody helped me understand the international Mind, Brain and Education movement more than one of its founders, Kurt Fischer, who died March 30. He was far more than a source for a story. He helped me think through my proposal to the Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT (my third attempt!), which gave me the chance to step away from deadline education reporting and immerse myself in research that was far away from the social science studies on policy that receive the most attention from reporters.

After I was accepted for the 2012-2013 school year, I spent much of my time in Cambridge hanging around the Mind, Brain and Education master’s program Kurt helped create at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (see HGSE’s remembrance). I audited one of Kurt’s classes as well as others in the program taught by his colleagues and former students.

Kurt Fischer also believed in the book I wanted to write about efforts to shift the scientific discussion from how the brain learns to how the brain teaches, a subject that until recent years has been largely unexplored by cognitive science. Kurt and Antonio Battro invited me to the 2013 Mind, Brain and Education International School in Erice, Sicily to talk about my project and offer my perspective as a journalist.

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Antonio also wrote a lovely tribute to Kurt:

One day in Cambridge we were having lunch with Kurt at the popular restaurant
Casablanca, near to our offices (a place of fond memories for many students and
teachers, now unfortunately closed “forever”, as I recently saw posted at the door).
We were certainly inspired that day because we made two bold projects: to create an
international organization to promote the new ideas of the cognitive neurosciences in
education, and to publish a journal affiliated with that organization. These ideas soon
became a reality and IMBES, the International Mind, Brain and Education Society,
and the quarterly Mind, Brain and Education, were founded. The Journal was
published in 2007 by Blackwell and edited by Kurt with David B. Daniel as managing
editor. I became associate editor. The first IMBES conference was held at Fort Worth,
Texas, in November 2007. Kurt became the first IMBES President, and I had the
honor to succeed him for a second period. Both IMBES and the Journal are still
thriving today.

As I near completion of the book that I started seven years ago in Cambridge, I am sad that Kurt won’t see my project come to fruition, but I’ll be forever grateful for his generous help, attention and faith that this story was worth telling.