Brain Culture Part 2

Summary

---

Podcast Summary: More or Less – Brain Culture Part 2

Date: November 22, 2011
Host: Matthew Taylor (BBC Radio 4)
Guests: Prof. Chris Frith, Dr. Paul Howard Jones, Nick Rose, Dr. Edmund Chanugar Bark, Michelle Jordan, Prof. Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, Prof. Carol Dweck, and students from Dufferin School, Newport

---

Overview:

Theme:
This episode explores how neuroscience is revolutionizing the way we understand learning and education. Matthew Taylor investigates whether insights into brain plasticity and reward systems can fundamentally change teaching methods, debunks some persistent neuromyths, and examines the implications for educational policy, especially the focus on early years versus lifelong learning.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Brain Plasticity and Its Impact on Learning

• Early neuroscientific research on musicians (notably violinists) established that the brain is "plastic"—it changes structure in response to learning new skills, not just during childhood but throughout life.

  • Quote:

    "PROFESSIONAL violinists. The bit of the brain that controls the fingers of the left hand is actually larger... It wasn't just new pathways, the relevant bit of the cortex actually got bigger."
    — Prof. Chris Frith [01:29]

• Brain plasticity has profound implications for education, suggesting potential for continued learning and improvement at any age.

2. Dopamine, Reward, and Gamification in the Classroom

• Classroom experiment at Dufferin School:

  • Students engage with history lessons using computerised gaming elements, incorporating randomness and the possibility of uncertain rewards.
  • Dopamine—released in the brain during anticipation of uncertain reward—enhances synaptic plasticity and information retention.
    • Quote:

      "The act of gaming releases a chemical called dopamine, which we think makes the brain more receptive... not because people always win, but precisely because they don't, because the rewards are uncertain."
      — Matthew Taylor [04:28]

• Findings suggest moments of anticipation before knowing if one has "won" are crucial for learning ("that's when you strike" – Paul Howard Jones [08:41]).

• This approach challenges traditional reward systems like gold stars and suggests that the psychology of gaming could be leveraged for deeper classroom engagement.

3. Risks and Limitations of “Brain Training”

• Dr. Paul Howard Jones warns against pseudoscientific brain-training products, which lack evidence for lasting cognitive benefits beyond the game itself.

  • Quote:

    "The evidence shows that the only thing these games make you better at is the game itself."
    — Paul Howard Jones [11:45]

• Highlights the danger of overselling neuroscience, stressing the need for nuance and evidence-based approaches.

4. Debunking Myths about "Early Years" Determinism

• Widespread belief in critical importance of the first three years ("myth that the brain is fully constructed by the age of three") is challenged.

  • Quote:

    "Quite often neuroscience is used to promote this idea."
    — Paul Howard Jones [12:07]

• Romanian orphan study (longitudinal):

  • Children deprived in orphanages, then adopted at different ages, showed significant recovery—even after prolonged deprivation—if nurtured in supportive environments.
    • Quote:

      "We saw quite startling pattern of recovery for a majority of children. An increase in IQ towards the norm..."
      — Dr. Edmund Chanugar Bark [16:44]

• While early years matter, brain plasticity means recovery and growth are possible later in life—challenging overly deterministic early years policies.

5. The Teenage Brain and Sensitive Periods

• Prof. Sarah-Jayne Blakemore’s research shows continued brain development during adolescence, especially in planning, social skills, and resisting peer influence.

  • Quote:

    "Parts of the brain that are involved in things like planning, in social interaction, peer influence, are very much developing during the teenage years."
    — Sarah-Jayne Blakemore [20:00]

• School curricula often neglect these developmental windows, pointing to opportunities for targeted interventions in secondary education.

6. Motivation, Praise, and the "Growth Mindset"

• Prof. Carol Dweck’s experiments reveal that praising effort (process) beats praising intelligence for motivating resilient, adaptive learners.

  • Quote:

    "When you tell children they're clever, it backfires... But the ones who have been praised for their process... their performance starts getting better and better."
    — Carol Dweck [22:47]

• Newport students’ attitudes mirror Dweck’s findings: top-set students view hard work as key, while lower-set students internalize failure as inherent lack of ability.

  • Quote:

    "Just because you're not that good at a subject don't mean you can’t get good at."
    — Newport student [24:49]

7. The Need for Public Understanding and Policy Change

• Educators and policymakers often misinterpret brain science as supporting genetic determinism.

  • Quote:

    "The layperson's understanding is that if something is in the brain, it's physical, it's genetic, it's fixed. I think what we have to communicate... the great plasticity of the brain."
    — Carol Dweck [26:46]

• There is immense potential for neuroscience to bridge the divide between traditional "knowledge-driven" and "engagement-driven" education approaches, making classrooms more effective and happier environments.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• "What do you mean by plastic?"
  — Matthew Taylor [01:46]
  "I mean it can actually change... Over the last 10 years or so, it's been found in animals that actually new neurons develop and in humans that you can detect structural changes in the brain simply as a result of learning a new skill."
  — Prof. Chris Frith [01:48]

• Classroom Experiment: Gamified Learning
  "So that's what makes it different."
  — Dr. Paul Howard Jones, on intertwining luck and learning [06:12]

• On “Brain Training” Products:

  "The only thing these games make you better at is the game itself."
  — Dr. Paul Howard Jones [11:45]

• On Teenage Brain Development:

  "If you speak to most teachers and you look at the curriculum, there's no systematic, formal, for example, lessons about how to plan or how to work in groups, how to resist peer influence. And maybe there should be."
  — Sarah-Jayne Blakemore [20:00]

• On Growth Mindset:

  "The ones who've been told they're clever now fall apart... But the ones who have been praised for their process... their performance starts getting better and better."
  — Carol Dweck [22:47]

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Intro and Prof. Chris Frith on Plasticity: [00:29]–[02:24]
• Dopamine, Gaming and Classroom Experiment: [03:16]–[08:41]
• Motivation, Reward, and Uncertain Rewards Study: [06:49]–[08:41]
• Evaluation of Gamified Learning Outcomes: [10:21]–[10:55]
• Myths about Early Years: [12:06]–[13:44]
• Romanian Orphan Study/Recovery and Plasticity: [13:44]–[17:54]
• Adolescence Brain Changes: [19:10]–[20:48]
• Dweck on Mindset and Praise: [21:12]–[23:25]
• Student Reflections on Ability and Effort: [23:43]–[24:49]
• Summary on Policy and Public Misunderstanding: [25:30]–[27:11]

---

Takeaway

Neuroscience is reshaping educational theory and practice, showing that learning is a lifelong process supported by the brain's plasticity. Reward mechanisms can be harnessed to improve engagement, but education policy needs to move beyond simplistic, deterministic beliefs about intelligence and development, ensuring that support and opportunity are available for every learner at every stage of life.

The episode ends with a teaser for the next installment: the potential for neuroscience to liberate or manipulate on a societal scale.

---

Transcript

[Narrator]

Thanks for downloading the More Or Less podcast from the BBC. Except it's not More Or Less you've downloaded because the series is currently off air, but instead, Matthew Taylor's series Brain Culture continues as part of a season of Radio 4 programmes exploring the rise of neuroscience. The former number 10 head of strategy asked whether Britain's education system will be changed by new insights into how human brains learn and retain knowledge.

[Matthew Taylor]

Welcome to Part two of Brain Culture, my journey to discover how neuroscience will change society. This week hopes for a neurologically based education for Britain's children.

[Professor Chris Frith]

Let's try this. This would be totally terrible.

[Matthew Taylor]

As you can probably tell, the point of listening to this viola is not for its artistic merit. But stringed instruments like the one being played here by Professor Chris Frith of University College London, do have an important place in the development of neuroscience. It was scans of brains of violin players that helped scientists understand that the brain is plastic. It doesn't just retain facts and memories in fixed areas, but learning special skills like music actually changes its structure. I believe this insight can shed new light on some very old debates about how to educate the nation. Chris Frith may not be a musical genius, but he's widely seen as the godfather of British neuroscience.

[Professor Chris Frith]

PROFESSIONAL violinists. The bit of the brain that controls the fingers of the left hand is actually larger. It wasn't just new pathways, the relevant bit of the cortex actually got bigger. And it's one of the ways that people have recently demonstrated how plastic the brain is.

[Matthew Taylor]

What do you mean by plastic?

[Professor Chris Frith]

I mean it can actually change. When I was a student, we were taught after the age of 16, that's it, and your neurons start to die off and you never have any changes since then. Over the last 10 years or so, it's been found in animals that actually new neurons develop and in humans that you can detect structural changes in the brain simply as a result of learning a new skill. It has implications for all stages of life, and particularly for learning.

[Matthew Taylor]

The idea that our brain is plastic throughout life and that, as well as pouring things into it, learning can generate new brain cells. Neurons and a new structure has many implications, ranging from the education of infants to warding off the symptoms of dementia. When my son's trained for football, they don't just play matches, they go through a set of complicated drills which have been shown to improve their underlying skills. Now, just as the relationship between sit ups and scoring goals may not be obvious, so brain plasticity is starting to suggest surprising ways of making the brain fitter. I'm Beginning my journey with a year 8 class near Newport. They're experimenting here with a technique designed to boost the brain plasticity of young children by using something most parents see as a distraction from learning.

[Dr. Paul Howard Jones]

Good morning, everyone. My name is Matthew Taylor and I'm presenting this radio program that we're recording today. And because you're going to be using technology, video game technology, in the lesson, I just want to ask you a few questions about video games. First of all, as a class, do you think learning in class is more or less interesting than playing video games?

[Dr. Edmund Chanugar Bark]

Less, Less.

[Dr. Paul Howard Jones]

Less.

[Professor Chris Frith]

Okay.

[Students (Charlotte, Rory, Samir, Drake, Jake)]

A lot don't get to shoot people in class.

[Dr. Paul Howard Jones]

You don't get to shoot people in class. No.

[Matthew Taylor]

But it's not the fantasy and imagination of video games that interest the neuroscientists. Instead, they've noticed something unexpected going on in players. Neural networks that seems to be affecting the brain's plasticity. I'm at Dufferin School, a Newport comprehensive with A Neuroscientist D, Dr. Paul Howard Jones of Bristol University.

[Paul Howard Jones (continued commentary)]

There's an idea and a common sense idea that games are fun and we should be using more games in the classroom. The trouble is that we haven't really understood how to do that. What neuroscience is offering is a more thoughtful and principled way of understanding how we engage in games, what happens in the brain when we engage in games, and how we can use that understanding to support learning.

[Matthew Taylor]

The act of gaming releases a chemical called dopamine, which we think makes the brain more receptive. Crucially, this is not because people always win, but precisely because they don't, because the rewards are uncertain. Paul Howard Jones study indicates that brains on alert for uncertain rewards are more likely to absorb new knowledge.

[Paul Howard Jones (continued commentary)]

I think that the really exciting thing is that dopamine can be responsible for increasing the efficiency by which neurons make connections, so called synaptic plasticity. Synapse is the technical word for the connection between the neurons. Plasticity means that it can change. And of course, we know from brain scans that video games, for example, are responsible for generating that sort of response in the brain. So this is telling us a lot about how to increase engagement.

[Dr. Paul Howard Jones]

So here we are in the classroom waiting to see whether this software really works.

[Teacher]

Right then. Okay, on with today's lesson then. Going to be studying the Tudors this year. Okay, so a little bit about the first ever Tudor monarch, then Arthur Tudor. Okay, Now, a lot of people don't actually know, but he was actually.

[Paul Howard Jones (continued commentary)]

Well, we're going to be seeing a lesson being taught in a way that is using Reward in an unconventional manner. What you're going to see in the classroom is an intertwining of learning content and gaming rounds.

[Teacher]

If you are right, you will gain a point. However, you have the option of doubling that point to make two. However, it's down to the computer to decide, and it's totally random if you want the chance to double your points, if you want to gain your points, then put your team number up in the air now.

[Paul Howard Jones (continued commentary)]

And in order to achieve and get the points, it's not just about them being able to apply the information and to apply their understanding that they've just recently acquired. It will also be a matter of luck as well. So that's what makes it different.

[Teacher]

Okay, so the answer has to be Richard iii, But there is a little matter of deciding or the computer deciding whether or not you get two points instead of one. So let's ask the computer. Right, so this time you've been successful.

[Matthew Taylor]

So before neuroscience came along, the debate

[Dr. Paul Howard Jones]

about motivation seemed like it had completely

[Matthew Taylor]

stagnated, that there was all it was of opinion, there was no scientific basis for going forward.

[Paul Howard Jones (continued commentary)]

Yes. I mean, in the past, you might say, here's a question I want to ask you, and if anybody knows the answer to this question, or if you can work the answer out, then you're going to get a gold star. But what we find is when you actually look at the evidence, the likelihood of you remembering from that experience is actually not very well related to the number of gold stars that you're offering.

[Dr. Paul Howard Jones]

And then neuroscience comes along.

[Paul Howard Jones (continued commentary)]

Well, yes, then neuroscience comes along. And I think an important study was done by Fiorillo, who looked at the response of the reward system in monkeys.

[Matthew Taylor]

In the study, the monkeys, dopamine levels were ramped up most, not when they always got a drop of honey for pressing a button, but when getting the honey was a matter of chance. And humans, too, seemed to produce more dopamine. When anticipating an uncertain reward, like in a game, the challenge is, firstly, whether what's been seen in animals can be utilized in humans. And secondly, whether we can actually use these neuroscience insights in the classroom.

[Teacher]

How many years before his father did Arthur die? Right. Remember the game now, okay, so uncertain

[Paul Howard Jones (continued commentary)]

reward actually generates a greater response in the brain's reward system. And that's something that you might not expect, but it helps us explain a lot of things, for example, why we're attracted to games of chance. And it's actually during those moments when you're leading up to the gaming opportunity when the button will be flashing and they'll be finding out whether they've been lucky or not. That will be the point at which they will be learning most as they're

[Matthew Taylor]

waiting for the reward.

[Dr. Paul Howard Jones]

That's when you can give them information

[Matthew Taylor]

which they're particularly likely then to hold.

[Paul Howard Jones (continued commentary)]

Yeah, that's when you strike.

[Teacher]

Is that everybody? Okay. Right then. Well, let's go through it then. Well, as I just showed you on the slide, and for those people who were paying attention to that slide, okay, Arthur died in 1502. Okay. Henry Tudor, Henry VII died in 1509. So if we do the maths and work it out, and of course, the answer 15 is not nine, as nobody said. It's not eight. It's not six. It is, of course, seven. So

[Dr. Paul Howard Jones]

doesn't this method drive us towards

[Matthew Taylor]

very shallow forms of learning?

[Dr. Paul Howard Jones]

Because when that dopamine gate is opened, as it were, in the brain, you

[Matthew Taylor]

can't shove a love of Shakespeare through the gap. You can just shove a date or

[Dr. Paul Howard Jones]

a fact or something like that. So isn't there a danger this is

[Matthew Taylor]

going to dumb us down to nuggets of knowledge rather than deep learning?

[Paul Howard Jones (continued commentary)]

I don't think so. I think you're making the assumption that this is an unusual situation in some respects. But I would say that in everyday life we have much more reward uncertainty, and everyday life is often more engaging than classroom experience. And that's one of the reasons. So although some of the early work that we've been doing was about factual recall, there's no reason why this can't be used with other types of learning. And there's certainly no reason why you shouldn't use it with Shakespeare.

[Matthew Taylor]

Paul Howard Jones technique is exciting. It suggests an answer to the growing problem of how schooling can compete in the ever more stimulating world of video games and the Internet. But I had some misgivings, so I did an entirely unscientific evaluation of my own.

[Dr. Paul Howard Jones]

Can I just ask you. Can I ask you a few more questions now? Okay, so how many of you are still confident that you know how many years it was between the death of Arthur and the death of his father? Okay, I'm just going to test. On the count of three, I want you all to chat out what the number is. 1, 2, 3. Okay. It seems like it does. It seems like that fact's gone in. Okay, now I want to ask you another fact. I want to ask. What was the name? Put your hand up if you're absolutely certain. What was the name of Henry VII's first son? Only those people with your hands Up. Tell me what you think. On the count of three, the name of Henry VII's oldest son was 1, 2, 3.

[Matthew Taylor]

I was. So while the facts the children had gamed had gone in, other ones hadn't. Now there's an age old debate in education between a traditional model of driving facts into children's heads versus a view that children must be engaged in their learning. Maybe in time the kind of neuroscience technique being used in Newport can overcome this divide by providing an engaging way of learning essential facts. But as we left, Paul Howard Jones himself wanted to give us a warning. His careful and still tentative research is in danger of being drowned out in a tide of pseudo scientific brain training games being sold for everything from management away days to people worried about dementia. The evidence shows that the only thing these games make you better at is the game itself.

[Paul Howard Jones (continued commentary)]

Yeah, I mean, there's at least two areas of hype. I think there's an area of hype which is associated with neuroscience itself. We know that neuroscience is a very alluring topic and, and that if you put in something about the brain in an explanation, it can make it more attractive and satisfying. I think also there is a common myth that the brain is fully constructed

[Nick Rose]

by the age of three.

[Paul Howard Jones (continued commentary)]

And quite often neuroscience is used to promote this idea.

[Matthew Taylor]

This point that the early years might not be all important to the brain may cause a frisson to run through Whitehall. The idea that our destiny all lies in those first three years has become a consensus that crosses party lines. It's seen money flow into programmes like surestart. Nick Rose of the London School of Economics is a sociologist who studies the neurobiologists. He says that brain science is being used mainly by progressive politicians with noble aims. In the same way they used to use insights from psychology to bolster something they're inclined to believe anyway.

[Nick Rose]

These arguments are mainly used for very progressive policies that they argue for increased resources for poor families, for parent training for poor families, and they use the neurobiological evidence in order to support that claim. In fact, many, many years ago, at the beginning of my career, I worked for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. And you saw exactly the same arguments, but framed in terms of psychodynamics, framed in terms of psychoanalysis. And the belief is now that finally, at last, we have objectivity.

[Matthew Taylor]

So who's right? How much do the early years matter? How much of our brain is determined by the time we're three? Some of the answers are starting to be provided by a remarkable study. Human tragedy has given us A unique opportunity to understand how the early brain is affected by deprivation and also how it can recover.

[Michelle Jordan]

This is Claudia, 23, and that's Giles, who's 20. Hi.

[Matthew Taylor]

They look just like a normal middle class family. But Giles and Claudia's start in life could hardly have been further away from this picture of suburban stability.

[Michelle Jordan]

I'm Michelle Jordan. In 1989, when all the problems arose in Romania, my husband and I, after having been through a lot of tests and various things trying to have children, we decided that we would go to Romania and hopefully adopt one child or two.

[Matthew Taylor]

The Jordans found Claudia then aged almost two in an orphanage and almost at once they decided to adopt. Later they adopted Giles, but he was just six weeks old. Now, the difference is only 21 months, but according to early years theory, could make all the difference.

[Michelle Jordan]

From what we know, Claudia was just left in the house from 7 in the morning till 7 at night. Just had a toweling nappy, bound round as they do and just left. Now, when we first saw Claudia, what we could see straight away was that she wasn't malnourished. I said to my husband, she doesn't cry. And I said, she doesn't say an awful lot either. And I said to the interpreter, she doesn't say very much. And she said, oh, well, nobody's been speaking to her. We did notice that the difference between the two, with Giles being adopted at six and a half weeks, Claudia at 23 months. Giles had constant stimulation right from an early age, whereas Claudia, let's say she almost missed the first two years of her life. But I had a child that you would assume would know how to play with things. She didn't know how to play. Whereas with Giles, what's that? Why? And children go through that normal process. Every mother will recognise why. Why? What do I do that for? Never got that with Claudia.

[Matthew Taylor]

Claudia's life story seems to turn early years theory on its head. We talk about the impact of poor parenting, but Claudia had virtually no parenting and virtually no stimulation. And now she has a university degree in graphic design. But delve a bit deeper and there is some sense of the struggle involved.

[Students (Charlotte, Rory, Samir, Drake, Jake)]

Probably the only impact is probably, I

[Michelle Jordan]

don't know, school life.

[Matthew Taylor]

Would you say finding it hard at school, that's probably the only thing learning.

[Michelle Jordan]

I don't know whether that was the impact of being Romanian. You perhaps didn't get on as fast as the others did, but you've caught up.

[Matthew Taylor]

Yeah, I don't feel any different, just feel normal, really. Claudia was just one of hundreds of Children adopted from Romania in 1989. And many of them have been part of a remarkable lifelong study comparing them to normal child development. Dr. Edmund Chanugar Bark of Southampton University was a principal investigator on the study and he told me how these babies first arrived in Britain.

[Dr. Edmund Chanugar Bark]

What we saw at that point was a profound impact of those multiple sources of deprivation. The levels of memory were very limited, their ability to regulate their thought were very limited, their language was very limited. But by the age of 6, because of course we followed these children up at 6 and 11 and 15, age of 6, we saw quite startling pattern of recovery for a majority of children. An increase in IQ towards the norm, certainly a big catch up in terms of weight and height.

[Matthew Taylor]

So this seems to belie the prevailing view that the development of the brain and the child in the very early years is really pretty deterministic in terms

[Dr. Paul Howard Jones]

of their future prospects.

[Dr. Edmund Chanugar Bark]

I think it really highlights the plasticity of the brain during those early years and the power of a normal, loving, normal social environment for children to transform even at the very neurobiological level. Having said that, a substantial minority did persist in a range of impairments and patterns of difficulty.

[Matthew Taylor]

Some of the Romanians did develop symptoms such as quasi autism, which could be traced to infant deprivation. But successful young people like Claudia are living proof that structured loving support can make up for even the worst start in life. Now, this doesn't mean the early years are unimportant. One vital unknown is the possible impact of a child's individual genetic inheritance in determining their recovery. But the Romanian study gives us hope and poses a challenge. Hope that the plasticity of the brain means most children can actually recover from a bad start. And a challenge to British policy that it should focus on older children as well as early years.

[Michelle Jordan]

As far as brain development, I feel that, yes, the first two years are incredibly important, but anybody who has had a poor start in life shouldn't be given up on. And Claudia is testament to that. Yes, everything's been a little bit slower, but she's achieved such a lot. And I think everybody is still retaining knowledge. The brain is still forming. Some of us not so much well as others, but I believe, I truly believe that it is something that can be fed for life.

[Sarah Jane Blakemore]

Before 15 years ago, say we didn't have the ability to look inside the living human brain, so we assumed that the brain changes in early development. This is partly because all the research that had been done on brain development had been done on animal brains. So it was assumed that that would be the same in the human brain, it turns out, it's not.

[Matthew Taylor]

The growing recognition that brain plasticity goes far beyond the early years has inspired a leading member of the new generation of Britain's young neuroscientists, Sarah Jane Blakemore of ucl. Using the latest scanning techniques, she's pioneered large scale studies of the brains of teenagers. She's found that different parts of the teenage brain have sensitive periods at times when they're changing, particularly. Again, neuroscience is shedding new light on long running educational debates.

[Sarah Jane Blakemore]

I think the study of the teenage brain is one example where brain scans absolutely revolutionised what we know about teenagers and learning. The hormonal changes are huge and changing school environments must have an impact on behaviour. But we now know that the brain undergoes dramatic development. And one example here is the fact that we now know that parts of the brain that are involved in things like planning, in social interaction, peer influence, are very much developing during the teenage years. And yet if you speak to most teachers and you look at the curriculum, there's no systematic, formal, for example, lessons about how to plan or how to work in groups, how to resist peer influence. And maybe there should be.

[Matthew Taylor]

But it's not just that understanding the brain can help educationalists and improve teaching. It could actually be that knowing how our brains work and how we learn can help students themselves. It's sometimes said that what makes human beings different is that we are the only species that can think about thinking. But can neuroscience help us do this in new and better ways?

[Carol Dweck]

For years we thought you have a certain brain and that's that some people have a better one, some people have a worse one. But now we're understanding the tremendous plasticity of the brain and the idea that the growth of your brain is in your hands is a thrilling idea and a motivating idea.

[Matthew Taylor]

Psychologist Carol Dweck of Stanford uses knowledge of the brain to develop experiments which seemed to be yielding some powerful and practical results. Her work began over a decade ago when she looked at what motivates children to learn. And what she found overturned not just an educational orthodoxy, but also many of our common sense views.

[Carol Dweck]

In the late 1990s, when our country was at the height of the self esteem movement, the self esteem gurus told everybody to praise their children's intelligence, tell them how clever they are all the time, and this was supposed to build their confidence, their self esteem and all good things would happen. But we did our research and showed that when you tell children they're clever, it backfires.

[Matthew Taylor]

The children in Dweck's experiments are Given practical tasks, which get harder as they go along. Everyone agrees we want children to grow up willing to take on new challenges. But listen to what happened when Dweck challenged the children to go outside their comfort zone and take on something that they might fail.

[Carol Dweck]

The ones who've been told they're clever now fall apart. They think, gee, if doing well meant I was clever, I guess struggling means I'm not. They stop enjoying the task, they stop doing well. But the ones who have been praised for their process, for their effort, and realize, well, these are harder problems. I just have to figure out how to learn them. They're confident how to do them, their confidence remains high, their enjoyment of the problems remains high, and their performance starts getting better and better.

[Matthew Taylor]

So children who are praised for trying hard do better than children who are told how clever they are. At Dufferin High School in Newport, the class we met earlier in the program were in the top set. So I couldn't resist asking whether their views are of their own. Success chimed with Carol Dweck's research.

[Students (Charlotte, Rory, Samir, Drake, Jake)]

Charlotte, Rory, Samir, Drake.

[Dr. Paul Howard Jones]

Okay, let me start with you, Charlotte.

[Matthew Taylor]

In a school like this, is there

[Dr. Paul Howard Jones]

quite a clear distinction between the pupils who are seen as being clever and those who are seen as not being clever? Charlotte?

[Students (Charlotte, Rory, Samir, Drake, Jake)]

Because definitely. Because it's not just a cleverness when they. They think that when they're not clever, they can't do anything. So they just. If you look in the lower set class, the behaviour starts to drag as well.

[Matthew Taylor]

If I was talking to the bottom

[Dr. Paul Howard Jones]

set and I said, why are you in the bottom set? Would they say it was because they weren't clever or because they didn't try hard? What do you think, Jake?

[Students (Charlotte, Rory, Samir, Drake, Jake)]

Because I think they'd say, oh, I'm just really dumb. Yeah, I agree with Jake. They would put themselves down, but they could actually be really good at something.

[Matthew Taylor]

Rory.

[Students (Charlotte, Rory, Samir, Drake, Jake)]

The kids in the bottom sit down, but they just don't try hard enough. And they put themselves down, but they

[Dr. Paul Howard Jones]

would say it was because they weren't clever enough. So it's interesting. You in the top set, you think

[Matthew Taylor]

you're here because you work really hard,

[Dr. Paul Howard Jones]

but the people in the bottom set think they're there because they're just not clever enough. Jay, what do you say when a friend of yours says, oh, I just can't do this, or I'm just no good at maths? Do you just say, okay, that's hard luck, or do you. Do you encourage them to work harder?

[Students (Charlotte, Rory, Samir, Drake, Jake)]

I like, say, I know you're not that good. But you've got to keep your head up, because just because you're not that good at a subject don't mean you can get good at.

[Carol Dweck]

Turns out maths is a subject where you get better by working on it and getting good instruction. But young students have started to say, well, I'm just not a maths person. And that gives them license never to work hard again. Even teachers will comfort students by saying, oh, don't worry, not everyone can be a maths person. And yet, working hard at math is a good way to get better at it.

[Matthew Taylor]

The practical value of neuroscience nearly always depends on how it connects to the observations of behavior and the insights of other disciplines. But the things we're learning from brain science, whether it's lifetime brain plasticity or how to release chemical stimuli, are providing the basis for the practical research of pioneers like Carol Dweck and Paul Howard Jones from Wandweck experiments. It even seems that knowing more about the brain and how it develops can inspire children themselves, and we teach it to them.

[Carol Dweck]

In terms of the latest neuroscience showing the brain forms new connections when you learn, new pathways are formed. The brain can reorganize when you learn. And many of the students, many of them said that they use this image of the neurons in their brain making new connections to motivate them in school.

[Matthew Taylor]

One of the arguments that we're looking at in these programs is that an awareness of our brains and how our brains work will be a very important factor in the 21st century in shaping policies, but also how we think of ourselves and how we think of our relationships to other people.

[Carol Dweck]

Yes, I think, nonetheless, there is still a great misunderstanding of the brain. I think the layperson's understanding is that if something is in the brain, it's physical, it's genetic, it's fixed. I think what we have to communicate to the public is this exciting idea of the great plasticity of the brain.

[Matthew Taylor]

Ways of harnessing the brain's plasticity are still at the beta stage, but they are exciting. Last week, I was left unconvinced by the claim that neuroscience will transform the law and change our ideas of right and wrong. But the work I've seen on learning gives me real hope that we can move beyond the tired debates about how best to teach. And more importantly, understanding the brain will help make the classroom a happier, more stimulating place. But what happens when not just teachers, but the very powerful in society get their hands on brain science? The big companies, the governments? Isn't brain culture one of corporate manipulation or personal liberation?

[Dr. Paul Howard Jones]

Find out in next week's third and

[Matthew Taylor]

final edition of Brain Culture.

[Narrator]

Brain Culture was presented by Matthew Taylor. The producer was me, Mukul Devachand. For our Terms of Use, please go to the BBC website and you can hear the next program in the series if you download the more or less podcast again from next Tuesday.