Ken Robinson Quotes

Nerve cells communicate with one another at specialized points called synapses. And these synapses are plastic - they can be modified by learning.

Your brain - every brain - is a work in progress. It is 'plastic.' From the day we're born to the day we die, it continuously revises and remodels, improving or slowly declining, as a function of how we use it.

Playful stimulation probably hits all kinds of synaptic possibilities. It is all make-believe and all over the map. The potentiality of the synapses and the potentiality of playfulness are a beautiful marriage.

There's an old rule in neuroscience that does not alter with age: use it or lose it. It is a very hopeful principle when applied to critical thought in the reading brain because it implies choice.

The connections in the brain fade away unless used. We know that early stimulation of children leads to higher cognitive scores.

Let schoolmasters puzzle their brain, With grammar, and nonsense, and learning, Good liquor, I stoutly maintain, Gives genius a better discerning.

It is literally the case that learning languages makes you smarter. The neural networks in the brain strengthen as a result of language learning.

Our brains have the ability to reorganize themselves by forming new neural connections throughout our lives. This ability is called neuroplasticity.

The human brain is an incredible pattern-matching machine.

Learning ballroom dancing is great for your brain. But it only works for three to six months. After that, you've got all the benefit you can get, and so you have to move on to yoga, and then Tai Chi, and then bridge, always keeping on the steep part of the learning curve.

We learn differently as children than as adults. For grown-ups, learning a new skill is painful, attention-demanding, and slow. Children learn unconsciously and effortlessly.

The brain is like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. Understanding is joyous.

It is because the body is a machine that education is possible. Education is the formation of habits, a superinducing of an artificial organization upon the natural organization of the body.

Neuroplasticity research showed that the brain changes its very structure with each different activity it performs, perfecting its circuits so it is better suited to the task at hand.

The mind of the polyglot is a very particular thing, and scientists are only beginning to look closely at how acquiring a second language influences learning, behavior and the very structure of the brain itself.

Experiences shape the brain, but the brain shapes the way we view experiences, too.

You could double the number of synaptic connections in a very simple neurocircuit as a result of experience and learning. The reason for that was that long-term memory alters the expression of genes in nerve cells, which is the cause of the growth of new synaptic connections.

If little else, the brain is an educational toy.

I just really like learning. I have to keep using my brain; otherwise, I get depressed.

Mediums change you by their very existence. They do this on fundamental levels because they force you to favour certain parts of your brain over others.

The brain is constantly adapting.

The brain is plastic its whole life span.

Reading requires the brain to rearrange its original parts to learn something new.

There are no genes or areas in the brain devoted uniquely to reading. Rather, our ability to read represents our brain's protean capacity to learn something outside our repertoire by creating new circuits that connect existing circuits in a different way.

In adult centers the nerve paths are something fixed, ended, immutable. Everything may die, nothing may be regenerated.