Educational practice has been searching for methods that make instruction more effective for many decades (Reynolds et al., 2014). However, a conclusive outcome has not yet reached manly to the translation of scientific theory into classroom activities, which seems to be a challenge for educators today in what is called best practice (Bygate et al., 2013). What is seen by many teachers is within their teaching, this being a mixture of what has been learned at university and what they have experienced during their professional development. Unfortunately, much of this learned education has roots in a pedagogy taken from the Cartesian dichotomy, all leading to students still learning what their parents have done before them, mainly by reading and listening (Powell, 1990). According to Powell (1990), the Cartesian dualism dichotomy of mind versus body has been put forth by philosophers such as Locke and Kant, who found inspiration from Descartes's description that one side of the body is a material "machine" containing organs and following the laws of nature, and on the other hand , the mind, which is non-material and independent of the laws of nature (Murphy, 2010). Through the workings of Descartes and later the work of Locke and Kant, this dualism model, according to BonJour (1997), has continued into today’s education and has given birth to what is termed "rationalism". Rationalism is the thought that the only source of knowledge is that of prior reason (Fodor, 1983). Fodor et al. (1974) suggested that the mind is a set of computational operations subdivided into modules that are defined in terms of their function. Fodor et al. (1974) also suggested that there is no connection between a module and the reference world outside, thus separating the mind from the body in the manner of the Cartesian Dualism philosophy. The traditional classroom structure born out of the Cartesian dichotomy consists of a standard lecture or classroom hall, with immovable chairs all facing the lectern, with the focus of "injecting content into students' brains." (Henderson, Khan, and Dancy, 2018). According to Park and Choi (2014), education was passed in a rhetorical setting, where students gathered around a teacher. There was not a place defined as a classroom. When education became more structured in Medieval times, cathedral schools organised students and their desks in rows facing each other. Classrooms have been organised in various ways, but with a consistent theme of symmetric desks around a room and the teacher’s desk or lectern at the head of the class. Through the industrial period, education turned from elitism to massification as more and more students began to attend university. The solution to educating more and more students was to build bigger buildings and lecture halls. This remains the more popular choice in most classrooms today. Emdin (2017) then explains that the classroom rules and management are set by the teacher, and students are expected to conform, behave, be quiet, raise their hand, only get out of their seat if necessary, and work independently and quietly with the teacher, without becoming involved in the classroom dynamics.
However, the role and impact of Cartesian Dualism philosophy and Rationalism on education and the learning student are beginning to change as a result of neuroscience research and its influences on learning, education, and body-based systems (Alibali and Nathan, 2012). This body-based system is based on empiricism, as knowledge of one's experiences is mediated by our senses, which are mediated by the body, indicating that the mind is not an abstract and isolated entity and is integrated into the body's sensorimotor systems (Barsalou, 1999, 2008). Empiricism or the embodied view of cognition is that the body systems create multimodal sensorimotor representations in the brain (Barsalou, 2008), which is a highly interconnected "system" of cells (Mahon and Hickok, 2016). According to Mahon and Hickok (2016), these cells respond to stimulation, i.e., signals that come from the outside world via ears, eyes, skin, nose, tongue, and motor actions, hence from organs of the body where the "mind," or "reason," is performed by the brain, an organ of the body. Research into body-based systems has pointed out that through the Empiricism concepts of sensory information uniting how the brain and body learn, the student becomes active in their learning. Chickering and Gamson (1987) stated that "learning is not a spectator sport," and Bonwell and Eison (1991) stated that active learning goes beyond simply listening to conveyed information. Instead, it is through this skill development that the learner transforms into a capable individual, ready to take on his or her role in society. According to Bonwell and Eison (1991), active learning was needed to combat didactic methods of teaching. Much of the research challenged the approaches to teaching that advocated how the retention of information and regurgitation of facts were conducted. Prince (2004) suggests that "active learning" is an instructional method that engages students in the learning process and requires students to do meaningful learning activities and think about what they are doing. It is these meaningful activities that, when compared with traditional teaching (i.e., lectures), research has demonstrated that they become more engaging, which in turn increases student learning gains (Roesler et al., 2018). Through research by Park and Choi (2014), they suggested that it is not just academic gains that are made when implementing an active learning instructional environment. These researchers mention that aside from curricula and instructional changes, when traditional, Cartesian dualism dichotomy, lecture-hall style classrooms were converted into active learning classrooms, the students highlighted that the classroom created a more dynamic learning environment and that there was "increased student interaction, interest in subject matter, and communication with instructors." It also enhanced class participation, direct feedback in the learning process, and students' willingness to ask questions in class. However, for active learning to take place, Northouse (2013) states that this will require the educator to become more of a transformational and situation facilitator rather than an authoritarian, dictating, and controlling informer.
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