Brain Awareness Week usually serves as a moment to celebrate how much we’ve learned about the human brain. But for me, it’s always a reminder of what we have yet to truly put into practice.
When I started this work almost 50 years ago, the scientific community was quite firm in the belief that the brain you were born with was the brain you were stuck with. I knew that belief intimately, not from a textbook, but from the shame of being a child who couldn't tell time or understand the relationship between ideas – who struggled with learning to read, to write and do basic arithmetic. I lived in a fog of cognitive limitations that I was told were permanent.
What I refused to accept then - and what I still challenge today - is the idea that a person’s potential is a fixed quantity.
We’ve come a long way since the 1970s. "Neuroplasticity" is no longer a radical word. We see research from places like Johns Hopkins confirming that the brain is dynamic throughout our lives. However, there is a vital nuance that often gets lost in the excitement: for cognitive change to happen, the work must be rigorous. It has to be structured, it has to be adaptive, and it has to be progressive.
There is a world of difference between "brain games" that offer simple engagement and a true clinical intervention designed to fundamentally rewire a specific cognitive function.
I see this gap between knowledge and action every day. The brain is not prioritized in educational design. While we have the evidence, many of our educational systems still focus on compensating for learning struggles - finding ways to work around a problem rather than addressing the root cause. When we do that, not only do we not address the issue, we contribute to the emotional toll. A child who struggles to learn doesn't just fall behind in math; they begin to believe they are fundamentally broken. That is a heavy burden for any child to carry, and it’s one that we now know is unnecessary.
Lately, the conversation has shifted toward Artificial Intelligence. It’s a fascinating, necessary dialogue, but I worry we are looking at the wrong issue. While we obsess over how algorithms will think for us, we are neglecting the most sophisticated learning system we already own – our brain.
Our brains are our primary instruments for reasoning and understanding and relating to the world we inhabit. If we don't invest in the underlying cognitive capacity of the individual, we are essentially building a future on an unstable foundation.
We have to stop being afraid of the "struggle." Speed and ease are prized, but in fact effort is the very thing that triggers brain change. The brain grows only when it is pushed to the edge of its current ability. Discomfort isn't failure; it's the biological requirement for growth.
My hope for this Brain Awareness Week is that we move past awareness towards taking responsible action. We have the tools to change the brain’s capacity in a deliberate, meaningful way. When we use them, the result isn't just a better test score or a sharper memory. It’s a shift in identity. It's the moment a person realizes that their future is no longer dictated by their past.
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