If you're seeing this message, it means we're having trouble loading external resources on our website.

If you're behind a web filter, please make sure that the domains *.kastatic.org and *.kasandbox.org are unblocked.

Main content

Connect: The truth about your brain

This is the high school version of activity #1: The truth about your brain. There are 3 parts to this LearnStorm growth mindset activity. To assign the activity to your class, assign all 3 parts.  
Activity 1: The truth about your brain
At the end of this activity you will be able to:
  • Understand how your brain changes and grows when you challenge yourself to learn new things

You are your own example.

The biggest example of brain growth is you.
Think about when you were born. There are many skills you know now that you didn't know when you were born. Some of these skills are very simple; some of them are very complex, and you may be still learning them.
Speaking, walking, tying your shoes, reading, and writing are just a few examples of everything your brain has grown to learn. You can learn anything!
Brain with weights

Reading and reading faster

Reading brain
Think back to how hard it was when you began to learn to read. Everyone struggles with it, and we get better throughout our lives. We get faster and faster with more practice.
Reading is similar to working on math. It helps improve memory, thought, and visual sections of the brain. As you get better at reading, your brain becomes better primed to remember song melodies, plays, dance routines, and many other things.

Learning a new language

French brain
Learning a new language strengthens the parts of the brain associated with memory, thought, and action. By learning a different language, you can recall more descriptive vocabulary, making you more expressive in your native language.

Practicing an instrument

Musician brain
Practicing an instrument improves the visual, auditory, and motor sections of the brain. It also strengthens the bridge between the two halves of your brain, allowing messages to get across the brain more quickly!
There are a lot of activities that can become easier as the two halves of your brain get used to working together! Playing sports, building a social network, and executing your creative ideas require both sides of your brain.

You were born to learn.

The common denominator of all of these examples is that you have the power to grow your brain by challenging yourself and working hard to learn new things.
You have completed part 1 of 3 for this activity: Connect!

Want to join the conversation?

  • duskpin seedling style avatar for user alexis villasenor
    Your brain contains billions of nerve cells arranged in patterns that coordinate thought, emotion, behavior, movement and sensation your brain contains so much important information it even keeps your memories from when you were little and from now.
    (61 votes)
    Default Khan Academy avatar avatar for user
    • duskpin seedling style avatar for user Steven Arroyo
      A brain is an organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It is located in the head, usually close to the sensory organs for senses such as vision. It is the most complex organ in a vertebrate's body. In a human, the cerebral cortex contains approximately 14–16 billion neurons,[1] and the estimated number of neurons in the cerebellum is 55–70 billion.[2] Each neuron is connected by synapses to several thousand other neurons. These neurons communicate with one another by means of long protoplasmic fibers called axons, which carry trains of signal pulses called action potentials to distant parts of the brain or body targeting specific recipient cells.

      Physiologically, brains exert centralized control over a body's other organs. They act on the rest of the body both by generating patterns of muscle activity and by driving the secretion of chemicals called hormones. This centralized control allows rapid and coordinated responses to changes in the environment. Some basic types of responsiveness such as reflexes can be mediated by the spinal cord or peripheral ganglia, but sophisticated purposeful control of behavior based on complex sensory input requires the information integrating capabilities of a centralized brain.

      The operations of individual brain cells are now understood in considerable detail but the way they cooperate in ensembles of millions is yet to be solved.[3] Recent models in modern neuroscience treat the brain as a biological computer, very different in mechanism from an electronic computer, but similar in the sense that it acquires information from the surrounding world, stores it, and processes it in a variety of ways.

      This article compares the properties of brains across the entire range of animal species, with the greatest attention to vertebrates. It deals with the human brain insofar as it shares the properties of other brains. The ways in which the human brain differs from other brains are covered in the human brain article. Several topics that might be covered here are instead covered there because much more can be said about them in a human context. The most important is brain disease and the effects of brain damage, that are covered in the human brain article.
      (33 votes)
  • blobby green style avatar for user amiyah-cole
    Never back downn, never whattt?!
    (32 votes)
    Default Khan Academy avatar avatar for user
  • starky seed style avatar for user Biffule Jayden
    Nickeh30/Never back down never what "GIVE UP" Never back down never what "GIVE UP
    (22 votes)
    Default Khan Academy avatar avatar for user
  • blobby green style avatar for user sradinsky7696
    What's one of the hardest things for a developing brain to learn?
    (10 votes)
    Default Khan Academy avatar avatar for user
    • boggle green style avatar for user 27dustin.gregory
      In the year of 2020-2021 maybe even in the future, the thing that seems like it's the hardest thing to understand, is other people's opinions. Iv'e seen people kill over having a different opinion on a simple thing. So to me that seems to be the hardest as of now, based off of people's attitudes so far
      (21 votes)
  • primosaur seed style avatar for user Brianna Williams
    When you are born there are many skills that are basic everyday things that everyone does so easily now, for example tying my shoe I remember is something, that I remember struggling with when I was seven and can do so easily so easily now without thought. Even just learning how to walk is an improvement that makes our brain more smarter without realizing it. My brain is differently more diverse from when I was born, considering all the times I struggled academically or didn’t understand something my brain was connecting neurons and being more complex as I struggled.
    (17 votes)
    Default Khan Academy avatar avatar for user
  • mr pink red style avatar for user Nickeh30
    We never giving up wit this one ‼️‼️💯💯💯💯🔥🗣️🔥🔥🔥🗣️🗣️💯💯🥶🔥💪💪💪
    (15 votes)
    Default Khan Academy avatar avatar for user
  • piceratops seed style avatar for user Gerardo Berumen
    How does your brain develop?
    (6 votes)
    Default Khan Academy avatar avatar for user
  • blobby green style avatar for user Estephanie  Herrera
    We are able to read now in our age but we weren't able to read when we were born.
    (13 votes)
    Default Khan Academy avatar avatar for user
  • blobby green style avatar for user jareenakhan65048
    what determines our ability to do things?
    (6 votes)
    Default Khan Academy avatar avatar for user
  • blobby green style avatar for user 198541
    how does the brain envoled into something so big and impotant?
    (7 votes)
    Default Khan Academy avatar avatar for user