Brainology Intro GT PDF: You Can Grow Your Intelligence

I nt ro du ct or y U ni t Reading for Activity Option 1 or 2 You Can Grow Your Intelligence...

I nt ro du ct or y U ni t Reading for Activity Option 1 or 2 You Can Grow Your Intelligence New Research Shows the Brain Can Be Developed Like a Muscle 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 Fotosearch exercising, the muscles shrink and you get A section of the cerebral cortex weaker. That’s why people say “Use it or lose it!” 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. Brainology® Curriculum Guide for Teachers © 2010 Mindset Works But most people don’t know that when Axon Dendrites Fotosearch they practice and learn new things, parts of A typical nerve cell their brain change and get larger a lot like muscles do when they exercise. 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 HEALTH & SCIENCE News You Can Use Page 1 of 3 easy. The result is a stronger, smarter brain. www.mindsetworks.com Copyright © 2002-2014 Mindset Works, Inc. All rights reserved.  I nt ro du ct or y U ni t How Do We Know the Brain Can Grow Even old animals got smarter and Stronger? developed more connections in their brains when they got the chance to play with new Scientists started thinking that the toys and other animals. When scientists put human brain could develop and change very old animals in the cage with younger when they studied animals’ brains. They animals and new toys to explore, found out that animals who lived in a their brains also grew by about challenging environment, with other animals 10%! and toys to play with, were different from animals who lived alone in bare cages. While the animals who lived alone just Children’s Brain Growth ate and slept all the time, the ones who lived with different toys and other animals Another thing that got scientists thinking were always active. They spent a lot of about the brain growing and changing was time figuring out how to use the toys and babies. Everyone knows that babies are how to get along with the other animals. 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 Effect of an Enriched Environment 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 Nerves in brain Brain of animal they mean. In a way, babies are exercising of animal living living with their brains by listening hard. in bare cage other animals and toys Later, when they need to tell their © 2010 Mindset Works parents what they want, they start practicing talking themselves. At first, they just make goo-goo sounds. Then, words Brainology® Curriculum Guide for Teachers These animals had more connections start coming. And by the time they are between the nerve cells in their brains. The three years old, most can say whole connections were bigger and stronger, too. sentences almost perfectly. In fact, their whole brains were about 10% heavier than the brains of the animals who Once children learn a language, they lived alone without toys. don’t forget it. The child’s brain has changed—it has actually gotten smarter. The animals who were exercising their brains by playing with toys and each other This can happen because learning causes were also “smarter”—they were better at permanent changes in the brain. The solving problems and learning new things. babies’ brain cells get larger and grow new connections between them. These new, stronger connections make the child’s brain stronger and smarter, HEALTH & SCIENCE News You Can Use just like a weightlifter’s big muscles Page 2 of 3 make them strong. www.mindsetworks.com Copyright © 2002-2014 Mindset Works, Inc. All rights reserved.  I nt ro du ct or y U ni t Growth of neuron connections in a child They don’t realize that any of the other from birth to 6 years old 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. At birth At age 6 What Can You Do to Get Smarter? © 2010 Mindset Works Just like a weightlifter or a basketball The Real Truth About “Smart” and player, to be a brain athlete, you have to “Dumb” exercise and practice. By practicing, you make your brain stronger. You also learn No one thinks babies are stupid because skills that let you use your brain in a they can’t talk. They just haven’t learned smarter way—just like a basketball player how to yet. But some people will call a learns new moves. person dumb if they can’t solve math problems, or spell a word right, or read But many people miss out on the chance fast—even though all these things are to grow a stronger brain because they think learned with practice. they can’t do it, or that it’s too hard. It does take work, just like becoming stronger At first, no one can read or solve physically or becoming a better ball player equations. But with practice, they can learn does. Sometimes it even hurts! But to do it. And the more a person learns, the when you feel yourself get better easier it gets to learn new things—because and stronger, all the work is worth their brain “muscles” have gotten stronger! it! The students everyone thinks as the “smartest” may not have been born any different from anyone else. But before they started school, they may have started to E-mail questions or comments to: practice reading. They had already started [email protected] Brainology® Curriculum Guide for Teachers to build up their “reading muscles.” Then, in the classroom, everyone said, “That’s the smartest student in the class.” HEALTH & SCIENCE News You Can Use Page 3 of 3 www.mindsetworks.com Copyright © 2002-2014 Mindset Works, Inc. All rights reserved.