The Big-Brained Superheroes Club Origins: Part 2 of X

So, we’ve documented at least some of the story behind the “superheroes” part of The Big-Brained Superheroes Club, but what’s with all this “big-brained” stuff?  Well, the answer isn’t as obvious as you might think…

We here at The Big-Brained Superheroes Club believe in science.  And as of now, science says teach kids about their brains:

“If we gave students a growth mindset, if we taught them how to think about their intelligence, would that benefit their grades?” Dweck wondered.

So, about 100 seventh graders, all doing poorly in math, were randomly assigned to workshops on good study skills. One workshop gave lessons on how to study well. The other taught about the expanding nature of intelligence and the brain.

The students in the latter group “learned that the brain actually forms new connections every time you learn something new, and that over time, this makes you smarter.”

Basically, the students were given a mini-neuroscience course on how the brain works. By the end of the semester, the group of kids who had been taught that the brain can grow smarter, had significantly better math grades than the other group.

“When they studied, they thought about those neurons forming new connections,” Dweck says. “When they worked hard in school, they actually visualized how their brain was growing.”

Dweck says this new mindset changed the kids’ attitude toward learning and their willingness to put forth effort. Duke University psychologist, Steven Asher, agrees. Teaching children that they’re in charge of their own intellectual growth motivates a child to work hard, he says.

“If you think about a child who’s coping with an especially challenging task, I don’t think there’s anything better in the world than that child hearing from a parent or from a teacher the words, ‘You’ll get there.’ And that, I think, is the spirit of what this is about." 

OK. Maybe the answer was obvious.  But the point is that we here at The Big-Brained Superheroes Club aren’t just using our big brains…we’re using our big brains to learn about, visualize, and embiggen our big brains.  We’re very meta that way.