This refers to the disparity between academic performance and skill mastery. It exists primarily between affluent students and low-income students. The achievement gap sheds light on the inequities in educational contexts, especially when analyzing students who are enrolled in public schools across the nation. The gap is attributed to multiple socioeconomic factors and has shaped public education in America for decades, particularly as the demand for postsecondary education has increased.

The amygdala is a collection of cells in the brain that helps the brain process fear-inducing situations. The amygdala is commonly linked with the “fight or flight” instinct. It triggers a release of hormones that alert the brain to a danger or discomfort. People often respond instinctively, regardless of the threat. Hammond argues that when the amygdala dominates a student’s thinking, they lose their ability to focus on academic learning.

Hammond argues that cognitive routines are the “engines of information processing” (131); students engage in deeper learning by means of established habits in the classroom. As teachers plan cognitive routines for their students, they must consider students’ prior knowledge and how it relates to new skills or content. Hammond points out that for most cognitive routines, the brain resorts to one or more of the following meaning-making habits: looking for similarities and differences; understanding whole-to-part connections; understanding how objects, events, or concepts are related to another reference point; identifying the predominant