Using the film the Wizard of Oz, an illustrative comparison is made between the Scarecrow’s learning experiences and our own. Like we often do, the Scarecrow reduces his potential learning and thinking abilities to nothing more than the formal operations presumably at work in the brain. Ostensibly lacking this brain, the Scarecrow solves nearly all the problems encountered in the journey to Oz. A neurophenomenological description of the Scarecrow’s experiences reveals his prereflective, situated learning, and embodied cognition. These ways of learning are often ignored and devalued in our educational system. Can this same method reveal our own subjugated knowledges? Herein, neurophenomenology is demonstrated as a critical pedagogy that critiques and liberates subjugated knowledge and supports a richer assessment of human learning and thinking.

Excerpt: The purpose of this chapter is to first explore potential hybrid theories and methodologies that will help to explicate specific and immediate moments of learning, such as situated learning as well as embodied and enactive learning and, second, to advocate for the use of a pedagogical portfolio assessment and praxis that is appropriate for adult learners and that values these ways of learning. […] I will synthesize specific ways of learning (situated, embodied, enactive) with a neurophenomenologically inspired pedagogy and praxis for the purpose of liberating these ways of learning from educational subjugation.

People who have sustained brain injury are administered standardized neuropsychological tests designed to evaluate brain dysfunction. Phenomenology is a descriptive method that seeks to explicate people’s lived experience and hence goes beyond the realm of mere brain function. Our method of neurophenomenological assessment mitigates the dangers of reducing people to brain dysfunction, and facilitates collaborative assessment of people who have brain injury. We offer examples of how clinicians can supplement their understanding of brain‐injured people, and we report concrete suggestions that relate to these clients’ everyday lives.