Explaining how the brain works is especially important for students who believe that they are “not smart” and that nothing they do can change that. Many children, and even some parents and teachers, think that intelligence is determined at birth and that even intense effort will not budge their academic abilities. The realization that they can literally change their brains by improving how they approach learning and how they study is liberating.

Students know that the more they practice a basketball shot or rehearse a ballet performance, the more their skills improve. In my class, they learn that brains respond the same way. When a learner goes over multiplication facts or rereads confusing parts of a book, the brain gets better at processing this information because, with such repetition, more neurons grow and connect to other neurons, and neurons get more efficient at sending one another signals.