Plasticity: the brain re-wires itself

Plasticity is the ability of the brain to re-wire itself.  It means we can be much more optimistic that struggling pupils can learn and links closely with the ideas of ‘grit’ and ‘growth mindset’.

Plasticity: our brains can change.

When we learn something, new connections are made: the brain changes its physical connections.

Skilled people have well-developed areas which store the memories, so they are immediately available.  When this has happened,  these ‘implicit memories’ allow us to do  things  easily, it requires almost no thought.

Patients who have suffered from a stroke – where part of the brain dies when an artery is blocked or bleeds – often start to recover immediately.  However, brain-scans show that another part of the brain has taken over the function.

We should not have a fixed idea about our ability or the abilities of our students.  We should not think “he’s no good at Maths“, but rather, “he cannot do long division, yet“.  The neuroscience supports the findings about ‘mindset’ etc.

We should be careful of the use of labels – gifted, musical, dyslexic etc – as these tend to reinforce a fixed mindset.