HOW2Learn - You can grow your intelligence - New research shows the Brain can be developed like a muscle

More has been learned about the brain in the last ten years then the last two hundred.

Many people think of the brain as a mystery. They don't know much about intelligence and how it works. When they do think about what intelligence is, many people believe that a person is born either smart, average, or dumb ‐ and stays that way for life.

But new research shows that the brain is more like a muscle ‐ it changes and gets stronger when you use it. And scientists have been able to show just how the brain grows and gets stronger when you learn.

Everyone knows that when you lift weights, your

muscles get bigger and you get stronger. A person

who can’t lift 20 pounds when they start exercising can get strong enough to lift 100 pounds after working out for a long time. That’s because the muscles become larger and stronger with exercise.

And when you stop exercising, the muscles shrink

and you get weaker. That’s why people say, ‘use it or lose it!’ But most people don’t know that when they practice and learn new things, parts of their brain change and get larger a lot like muscles do when they exercise.

Inside the cortex of the brain are billions of tiny

nerve cells, called neurons. The nerve cells have

branches connecting them to other cells in a

complicated network. Communication between

these brain cells is what allows us to think and solve problems.

When you learn new things, these tiny connections in the brain actually multiply and get stronger. The more that you challenge your mind to learn, the more your brain cells grow. Then, things that you once found very hard or even impossible to do ‐ like speaking a foreign language or doing algebra ‐ seem to become easy. The result is a stronger, smarter brain.

How do we know the brain can grow stronger?

Scientists started thinking that the human brain

could develop and change when they studied

animals’ brains. They found out that animals who

lived in a challenging environment, with other

animals and toys to play with, were different from

animals who lived alone in bare cages.

While the animals who lived alone just ate and slept all the time, the ones who lived with different toys and other animals were always active. They spent a lot of time figuring out how to use the toys and how to get along with the other animals. These animals had more connections between the nerve cells in their brains. The connections were bigger and stronger, too. In fact, their whole brains were about 10% heavier than the brains of the animals who lived alone without toys.

The animals who were exercising their brains by

playing with toys and each other were also ‘smarter’ ‐ they were better at solving problems and learning new things.

Even old animals got smarter and developed more connections in their brains when they got the chance to play with new toys and other animals. When scientists put very old animals in the cages with younger animals and new toys to explore, their brains grew by about 10%!

Children’s brain growth

Another thing that got scientists thinking about the brain growing and changing was babies. Everyone knows that babies are born without being able to talk or understand language. But somehow, almost all babies learn to speak their parents’ language in the first few years of life. How do they do this?

The key to growing the brain: practice!

From the first day they are born, babies are hearing people around them talk ‐ all day, every day, to the baby and to each other. They have to try to make sense of these strange sounds and figure out what they mean. In a way, babies are exercising their brains by listening hard.

Later, when they need to tell their parents what they want, they start practicing talking themselves. At first, they just make goo‐goo sounds. Then, words start coming. By the time they are three years old, most can say whole sentences almost perfectly.

Once children learn a language, they don’t forget it. The child’s brain has changed ‐ it has actually gotten smarter. This can happen because learning causes permanent changes in the brain. The babies’ brain cells get larger and grow new connections between them.

These new, stronger connections make the child’s

brain stronger and smarter, just like a weightlifter’s big muscles make them strong.

The real truth about ‘smart’ and ‘dumb’.

No one thinks babies are stupid because they can’t talk. They just haven’t learned how to yet. But some people will call a person dumb if they can’t solve math problems, or spell a word right, or read fast ‐ even though all these things are learned with practice.

At first, no one can read or solve equations. But with practice, they can learn to do it. And the more a person learns, the easier it gets to learn new things ‐ because their brain ‘muscles’ have gotten stronger! The students everyone thinks are the ‘smartest’ may not have been born any different from anyone else.

But before they started school, they may have

started to practice reading. They had already started to build up their ‘reading muscles’. Then, in the classroom, everyone said, ‘That’s the smartest student in the class.’

They don’t realise that any of the other students

could learn to do as well if they exercised and

practiced reading as much. Remember, all of those other students learned to speak at least one whole language already ‐ something that grownups find very hard to do. They just need to build up their ‘reading muscles’ too.

What can you do to get smarter?

Just like a weightlifter or a basketball player, to be a brain athlete you have to exercise and practice. By practicing you make your brain stronger. You also learn skills that let you use your brain in a smarter way ‐ just like a basketball player learns new moves.

But many people miss out on the chance to grow a stronger brain because they think they can’t do it, or that it’s too hard. It does take work, just like

becoming stronger physically or becoming a better ball player does. Sometimes it even hurts! But when you feel yourself get better and stronger, all the work is worth it!

Stand tall, Walk proud!

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Gold Phoenix Award Recipients

Congratulations to the following student who received their Gold Phoenix Award at the last school assembly. Well done! Fantastic effort!

Gostwyck

Annie Hunt and Amber Press.

Saumarez

Arlia Witcher and Ruby Smith.

Silver Phoenix Award Recipients

Congratulations to the following students who received their Silver Phoenix Award at the last school assembly. You all should be very proud of your wonderful achievements.

Balala

Katelin Acton, Sophie Barraclough, Monique Baldwin and Madison Ball.

Kentucky

Ethan Kliendienst, Stephanie Kliendienst, Rhiannon McDonald, Adeline Oxley and Shawn Myhill.

Saumarez

Jaden Watts, Penelope Rummery, Kade Swilks and Taylah Whitton.

Bronze Phoenix Award Recipients

Congratulations to the following students who received their Bronze Phoenix Award at the last school assembly. Well done!

Balala

Kaytie Cooper, Stephanie Acton, Callum Dailey, Sheree Bullock, Cooper Cromie and Ryan Birch.

Gostwyck

Matthew Hapimiraki, Bryan Fenner, Meyrick Griffiths, Brielle Farrell, Erica Jerrard, Alec Ellston and Sarah Jackson.

Kentucky

Benjamin Kaberry, Isabella Murray, Skye Jones, Sharni Oldknow, Lauren Parker, Dechen Kandro and Jackson Peters.

Saumarez

Bethany Schulhin, Abbey Weguelin, Caitlin Spradbrow and Phoebe Wicks.

Middle School