Brain Education has, for the first time in the United States, been built directly into an official teacher certification pathway — with the Institute of Brain Education (IBE) serving as the content provider for a new elective course inside New Mexico’s public teacher licensure system.
IBE announced that its newly developed online course has been approved as an official elective in the New Mexico Public Education Department’s (NMPED) teacher licensure advancement program, APL II-III. Teacher enrollment opens this September, with the course launching in October.
A Foothold Inside the U.S. Teacher Licensure System
The approved course is Brain Education-Based Classroom Intervention for Self-Regulation and Learning Readiness. IBE served as the content developer, designing and building the course from the ground up.
NMPED runs a micro-credential system to help teachers advance their licensure level and sharpen their classroom practice. To move from Level 2 to Level 3 — the highest tier — teachers complete four micro-credentials: two required courses and two electives. All 11,600 of New Mexico’s Level 2 teachers are eligible to enroll in the course at any point in their career, while a smaller group will be positioned to use it toward Level 3 advancement. Each course requires teachers to apply what they learn in their own classrooms, document the results, and clear an 85% mastery bar.
What makes Level 3 status matter is what comes after it: Level 3 teachers become instructional leaders who mentor other teachers, and we hope they will also share Brain Education with their colleagues, helping it spread more widely.
Designed for the Classroom, Not Just the Textbook
The course was built around classroom application, not lecture-style theory. It walks teachers through the neuroscience behind self-regulation, social-emotional learning (SEL), and learning readiness, and how Brain Education principles connect to each.
Teachers are required to apply the material with their own students, document outcomes, and introduce the approach to parents as part of the coursework. Everything submitted is reviewed by a panel of education professionals under NMPED’s standards.
The curriculum draws on Brain Education’s foundational texts, instructional and practice videos, and Arirang Qigong, balancing the philosophical grounding of Brain Education with hands-on practice.
(Note: this is a standalone K-12 teacher professional-development course administered through NMPED’s licensure system — separate from IBE’s DEAC-accredited graduate degree programs.)
Built on Years of Groundwork — Brought to Scale in Months
This achievement didn’t take IBE fifteen years to deliver — but it also didn’t happen in a vacuum. The New Mexico Brain Education School Project team (NMBE team) has worked directly in New Mexico classrooms for roughly fifteen years, reporting meaningful gains in students’ self-regulation, focus, and emotional stability along the way. In December 2025, the NMBE team and IBE agreed to collaborate specifically on bringing that groundwork into NMPED’s teacher certification system — with IBE serving as the content developer that turned years of classroom experience into an approved licensure-pathway course within months. Brain Education itself is now used in school and civic education programs in Korea, the U.S., Japan, the U.K., and El Salvador, among others — and in Korea, it underpins a number of public education initiatives under the name Brain-Based Happiness Education.
That track record had already drawn formal recognition before this certification news: in early 2026, the New Mexico State Senate (57th Legislature, Second Session) presented the Brain Education Program with a certificate of recognition for its contributions to the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of students, educators, parents, and community members across the state. The certificate was signed by Senate President Pro Tempore Mimi Stewart, Senator Linda M. Trujillo, and Senate Chief Clerk Cheri Lujan Hamilton, and described Brain Education as a neuroscience-informed, whole-person mind-body program that builds focus, self-regulation, emotional balance, resilience, and healthy lifestyle habits.
A New Model for “K-Education”
“This project moves Brain Education beyond simple program adoption and into the official teacher professional-development infrastructure of a U.S. state education department,” said Dr. Hope Ihm, Chief Academic Officer of IBE. “Because Level 3 teachers become instructional leaders, we hope this becomes a natural way for Brain Education to spread from teachers to students to parents.”
“This achievement by the New Mexico Brain Education Project is a powerful example of the Earth Management spirit and Coexistence Intelligence in action,” Dr. Ihm added. “I’m proud to know many of the dedicated leaders behind this work personally, and grateful that IBE continues to serve as the first and only accredited academic institution in the United States devoted to Brain Education and Earth Management.”
Brain Education, which originated in Korea, is offering new light on education in a part of the world far from where it began. IBE says it intends to use the New Mexico partnership as a model for expansion into other states and countries.
Quick reference:
- APL II-III — New Mexico’s licensure advancement program moving teachers from Level 2 to Level 3
- Micro-credential — A competency-based certification earned through online coursework plus documented classroom application
- Level 3 teacher — New Mexico’s top teaching tier; serves as an instructional leader mentoring peers
Source: Institute of Brain Education
Original Article: “IBE Course Joins Official New Mexico Teacher Certification”
Link: https://www.ibe.edu/post/ibe-course-joins-official-new-mexico-teacher-certification
This article was originally published on the Institute of Brain Education website and is Reposted with permission from the Institute of Brain Education.