Choose the right tool for the job
Customer Rating: 
In response to a previous reviewer, I, too, note that like many business people in the field of education, Mr. Buzan tends to over sell his product. However, I've tracked Buzan's work for sometime, and used mindmapping to great effect in many aspects of my life. (If you've ever fumbled through public speaking with 3X5 cards, a mind map will make you a much better speaker.) As for "spurious claims" and "pseudoscience", in absence of any specific evidence for those assertions a reader would be foolish to believe the previous review. Do we know enough about the brain to make all the claims Buzan makes? Probably not. But as with all the criticisms of Brain Based Teaching and Learning methods, you would be a foolish teacher if you were to wait around for definitive proof. You might equate it to the arguments over global warming. Ok, maybe the science to support all the doomsday scenarios of G.W. is a bit overblown. But to ignore it and expect it to go away is insanity. Mind Mapping is a terrific method of organizing information that has been used effectively in the business world in one form or another for years. As we are visually centric creatures, it only makes sense to get a view of the big picture. Buzan's method and mind mapping in general aren't about kids thinking more, or thinking harder. They are about thinking smarter. And the empiracle evidence is there to prove it. Bells and whistles and what not aside, using mindmaps with kids, where appropriate, is just good practice.
Narrowing the broader mind
Customer Rating: I'm afraid he's done it again. But to kids this time. As we have learned from science; The more strategies you use well and know where to apply, the more likely you will be a good learner. We have SQ3R, imagination, questioning techniques, solid reading strategy, communication with peers, and a wide range of graphic organizers such as timelines, graphs, matrices, concept maps, annotated images etc. The field is extremely wide.
Then we have the mind map. He feeds the kids sweeties and balloons and blinkers them into using a very limited technique and uses pseudoscience to teach them to apply it to every learning task in their curriculum. This is bad news.
The trick is to get people into mind mapping(R), and tell them that it works miracles. Then they buy more of the same kind of Buzan book, which says just about the same thing (He basically claims it will make you Einstein).
OK, he claims to have originated the technique. But it has been around for centuries, and was actually further developed by Dr Allan Collins years before Buzan jumped on the bandwagon. That's bad enough. But to pick on kids and tweak their insecurities about not being as smart as Einstein just to sell more books is really beyond the pale.
P.Jennings
