 Another core principle is neuroplasticity. The brain is plastic, it's flexible, it's elastic. It exists throughout the lifespan. You can learn until you die, basically. There are, however, notable developmental differences by age and many people have heard about all these great studies that say, oh no, the kids are sponges and zero to three and this is the main time of learning and there's so much new connections. Well, so this makes us think that, plasticity is something that's stronger or more important in the early years. Not 100% true. In fact, some of the things that happen later on in life, for example, in teen years, there's a whole lot of pruning going on. So not only are there new connections, but the brain is becoming very efficient and it's actually cutting off types of connections that are no longer useful. So instead of, and your brain is really clever, when you get a new piece of information, you try so hard to get it into your brain this way, that way, the other way, create this connection, try to create these links and sometimes some of those are just not useful. Once you've figured out, for example, if we look at a brain of a kid learning to read, there is activity all over the place. They're trying all kinds of things, right? But if you look at an efficient reader, somebody who knows how to read really well, it looks like they're using a fraction of the brain space, the energy, the networks and that's true because they have realized this is the most efficient way to do it. So we realize that plasticity, the creation of new connections is really important, but the pruning that occurs afterwards is equally as important and this is very important to note. So number one idea is that plasticity exists throughout the lifespan. Number two is that pruning is also perhaps as important as neuroplasticity. The key is that plasticity, the creation of these new connections, synapses between groups of neurons, the strengthening of that that's visible through new white matter tracks or myelination that joins and creates a speedier transmission of electrical stimulus through the brain. That's important and it occurs throughout the lifespan. But how does this have any impact on teaching? It's basically plasticity is the physical manifestation of learning. But part of our problem is, part of the deal here is that sometimes some teachers mistakenly think that, okay, there was a critical period and this kid just missed it. Instead of believing that all students can learn and they can improve and training always improves. It doesn't matter what your natural level of intelligence is, the more you rehearse something, the better you can get at it or the more permanent that particular behavior can become. So, and this connects onto an attitudinal element that teachers might have. Teachers have to believe that their kids can do this, that they will learn throughout the lifespan. Unfortunately, we still have two big misconceptions. One is that, okay, there's a critical period and these kids have passed it and so since he didn't learn foreign language before the teen years or because she didn't learn to read at a particular age, she never will or he never will be able to do that. That's not true. The order of steps is much more important than the age of a person. So we have to just believe in neuroplasticity. That's number one. The second point is very much linked and it's connected to Carol Dweck's work related to mindsets. Learning is fluid. It is not fixed. You oftentimes will hear a kid just because he's heard, you know, oh, I'll never be able to do that well because, well, my dad was the same way. He wasn't good either. So therefore, I inherited that from my dad. I will not be able to get better, something like that. That's just wrong. We know that people who believe in a fluid mind, who have a fluid mindset, who are open to the belief that, you know, I am not only my genes. I can be my own experience. So if I've decided that I can do this, I will do this. So being able to break out of that idea that you inherit and are locked in to the definition of yourself just based on your genetic makeup. So it's really important for us as teachers to really believe in this concept of plasticity and believe in our students and give them the space that they need and the time that they need to be able to achieve as much as they can based on their own potentials.