The period of relearning
Neuroplasticity refers to the brain’s ability to ‘rewire’ itself. To adapt and change as a result of injury, experience and learning. Scientifically speaking, it is a result of neurons (nerve cells) changing, adjusting and in some cases regrowing in response to environmental, physical or emotional stimuli.
(Just a PSA I will be referring to learners in this blog post in the context of people completing some kind of learning, training course etc., yes I’m aware we are all learners. But this is an easy catch all term to avoid flitting between student, child, adult, etc. Semantics Police no need to get all hot and bothered.)
At the point of writing this, I have not long attended a seminar at my sons’ school.
During the short presentation, the deputy head teacher went over the school values, and how they support the children’s learning. All standard stuff.
I’ll be brutally honest, my inattentive brain was starting to wander, thinking of all the ways I could improve the mismatched slide deck they were presenting. When suddenly a slide appeared titled ‘learning science’.
Okay good move, now you have my interest.
The slide went on to explain the importance of developing the children’s understanding of neuroplasticity.
For those who aren’t aware, neuroplasticity refers to the brain’s ability to ‘rewire’ itself. To adapt and change as a result of injury, experience and learning. Scientifically speaking, it is a result of neurons (nerve cells) changing, adjusting and in some cases regrowing in response to environmental, physical or emotional stimuli.
During the early years of our lives, our brain is at a period of rapid growth. This causes our brains to create thousands of neural connections, which allow us to process information and receive the necessary sensory input, to properly develop. However, as we move into adolescence and adulthood these connections are ‘pruned’, with some being eliminated and others being strengthened.
That being said, our brain continue to adapt and change throughout our entire lives, as a result of damage (for example stroke or traumatic brain injury), learning, and new experiences. There is no fixed age in which our brain stops changing.1
Now obviously the school didn’t go into this much detail, but working in learning and development this fascinates me, so of course I did a hyperfocus deep dive.
So, coming back to school children. Why is this important?
Neuroplasticity supports the idea of lifelong learning. That it’s never too late to take up something new, to play that musical instrument or try that sport. Instilling this mindset that learning doesn’t end when school does, is crucial in forming adults who are resilient, agile and creative.
Well at a young age our brain is more malleable. Those thousands of neural connections means that we can take on, and retain information at a rapid rate.
For example, learning a language. I remember going to Spain as a child and within the 3 holidays over the course of say 6 years, I had picked up conversational language. (this was before Duolingo and Google might I add!) The exposure of being around Spanish people meant that my 9-year-old brain had begun to pick up greetings, numbers and basic conversation. Was I learning Spanish at home? Nope, this was just my brain learning in response to a new environment.
On the flip side, as an adult I am trying to maintain my ability to speak French. Having studied the language for 7 years, then not speaking, reading or writing in French at all when at university, I decided I wanted to continue learning the language.
Oh boy I was not prepared for how hard it is.
No longer does my brain just hear words, process them, and store them in a little memory bank like it did with Spanish. Oh no. Listening to a French interview, or podcast sounds like absolute gibberish. Even though at one point I was speaking the language daily and could write essays in fluent French. In the 3–4-year gap I had, my brain had decided it no longer needed all this information and began to dump some away.
If you’ve ever seen Inside Out, where the memory workers throw away Riley’s old memories, you’ll get what I mean.
I’m now having to expose myself to as much of the language as possible, to try and reawaken and strengthen that neural connection that allows us process, and learn languages.
Neuroplasticity supports the idea of lifelong learning. That it’s never too late to take up something new, to play that musical instrument or try that sport. Instilling this mindset that learning doesn’t end when school does, is crucial in forming adults who are resilient, agile and creative.
All of which we know contribute to ‘healthier’, better performing workplaces, but also support positive mental health.
We waited as the teacher took a second to consider her answer. A look crossed her face as I realised, she didn’t really have an answer.
As the presentation moved on, the teacher spoke of developing the children’s understanding of resilience, of making mistakes and trying again. They explained how whilst the goalposts may be the same for the children, (excluding specific needs for SEN) their paths are different, and learning is tailored to allow the children to carve out a path that suits their needs and their pace.
I left the seminar feeling both reassured that I had chosen a fantastic school for my children, but also slightly sad.
Sad for all the generations that have come before, who weren’t taught the value of learning.
You see, not once did the school mention making learning fun. Because it’s not about fun. Yes, it can be enjoyable, and teachers can do their best to make lessons engaging and relatable to the age group, but when it comes down to it, learning will be at times; frustrating, slow, boring, difficult and necessary.
The school aren’t promising the children they are going to love every second. What they are doing is reinforcing the why. Why learning is important and why it can benefit them and others. In time, this manifests a want for learning, a thirst for knowledge and an understanding that quite often it links into a picture much bigger than our individual needs or desires.
I attended school in the late 90’s / early 2000’s. To be honest I always considered myself a bit of nerd, I absolutely loved to know things. I wanted to suck the information up like a sponge. Back then it was called being a ‘know it all’. So, I kept this hidden, silently scowling when my classmates disrupted the lesson. A proper Hermione.
As teenagers we have a pretty selfish view of the world. I remember a maths lesson in secondary school in which the teacher was trying to teach us trigonometry. Inevitably, as we became frustrated and struggled with how difficult it was, this led to some of the students challenging the teacher as to why this was necessary.
“What am I going to even use this for Miss?”
We waited as the teacher took a second to consider her answer. A look crossed her face as I realised, she didn’t really have an answer.
“It’s going to come up on your exams, so you need to know it,” she replied sternly. Obviously having heard this question before and becoming a tad fed up with answering it.
But this embodies the attitude towards learning at that time. It was all about being a means to an end. Taking the exams, getting the grades and leaving school to either move on to college, or get a job.
I had friends whose parents were paying them a certain amount of money to achieve a certain grade…£50 for every A, £30 for every B…etc., etc.
If that doesn’t spell it out clearly, I don’t know what will.
It was all about hitting that goal. The journey didn’t matter, what came after didn’t matter. Just get those A’s and you’ll be fine.
As a result, we were never encouraged to try and fail either, which in my experience led to me basing my entire self-worth on a letter, scribbled at the top of an exam paper and a lifelong fear of getting things wrong.
Now I’m not slating the teachers or my friends’ parents. They were simply doing what they felt best, in response to societal pressures at that time.
What this did do however, is raise a generation of us who developed a bit of a disdain for learning. Having been pressured into achieving specific grades, but not really understanding why, or being advised to reflect on the journey to get there, we moved into adulthood and into the workplace always seeing any form of training as, ‘something to just get on with’.
I’m not saying our teachers should have individually gone around the class and dictated to every student how they may use trigonometry in their future. Instead, challenging us to move out of our self-centred teenage attitudes and understand that one day we will be part of society, where critical thinking, patience, problem solving skills will all be needed. All of which we were demonstrating when attempting the trigonometry.
Yes, there may have been students in my class at the time who went on to become engineers or scientists and therefore had a use for that specific topic. But what would have been more valuable for us to understand, is this concept of neuroplasticity. To understand how developing these skills, stretching our brains and trying new things could positively benefit us, regardless of our age, career paths, interests etc.
So, as my generation and those before us moved into the workplace, learning and development functions were already working at a disadvantage.
We know that motivation and time can be two of the biggest challenges when trying to get staff, colleagues, whatever you want to call them, to engage with necessary training. Part of this I believe is because we didn’t understand the value of learning, we moved from school into work maintaining that self-centred attitude. Therefore, when presented with a mandatory fire awareness course to do, we immediately jump to, ‘eugh another compliance course, I’m just going to whiz to the end and do the test. I don’t have time for this’.
Instead of seeing it like this…
‘Okay so the chances of a fire are quite rare, but I’m not the only person working in this building. Therefore, I may retain a key piece of information, that someone else might not, which could prove vital, should this situation ever happen. I also have a responsibility as an employee, to keep myself and my colleagues safe.’
Now I’m not stripping learning and development of all its responsibility here. I have seen first hand how bloody dull and irrelevant some compliance courses can be. We 100% have a responsibility to not only ensure our learners, users etc., are aware of the courses they can, and need to complete, but also to make it feel relevant to them. To strengthen that motivation.
But, if you have individuals going into training already in the mindset of ‘I don’t see the value in this’, we’re pretty much doomed, regardless of how engaging or interactive the training is.
What we’re now seeing is a period of ‘relearning’. Courses on agility, resilience, psychological safety, are all being added to curriculums, to almost teach us adults how to learn again. To reassure us that it’s okay to make a mistake, that we don’t have to trigger our fight or flight, just because we sent an email to the wrong person.
We need to move beyond standard learning outcomes and look at the more transferrable skills a person will achieve from completing a course and how these will positively impact their growth and career.
Another key point which really stuck with me, from the seminar at my sons’ school, was this idea of ensuring the children are ‘ready to learn’. This means addressing their emotional wellbeing first.
They reiterated that if a child has worries, or a lot on their mind, their ability to engage with the lesson will be altered.
Makes sense. This begins to teach our children the foundations of emotional intelligence, of self-awareness and the importance mental health plays in our physical health and development.
Once again, this was absolutely missing from my school days. Mental health wasn’t talked about. You were expected to leave home problems at home.
Thankfully, we are seeing a rise in mental health being much more widely discussed and valued in workplaces. But again, many of us have struggled with motivation or attentiveness during a training session, simply because our brains are not ‘there’. They aren’t present, instead mulling over our to-do lists, or thinking about the argument with our spouse from earlier that morning.
Within learning and development, I believe we need to reframe how we engage with this current demographic of learners. We need to be clear and transparent on the why, demonstrating the value in what we are providing. We need to leave appropriate durations for people to complete any training, taking into consideration mindset, time, mental health. We need to move beyond standard learning outcomes and look at the more transferrable skills a person will achieve from completing a course and how these will positively impact their growth and career.
We also need to be providing opportunities for people to learn just for the sake of it. Provide an offering of ‘hobby’ courses. Encourage team members to attend art classes, learn a new language, take up an instrument, join a dance group. This means providing time and space for them to do so. Let them build that love, for learning something new. Let them learn from each other.
This may all seem like a lot to ask, and I am well aware it’s never that simple. Budgets, low staffing, time, all play a big part in this.
But this is why it’s reassuring and exciting to see young minds (my eldest son is 6), being introduced to continuous, enjoyable learning from the get-go. Because these kids, who aren’t afraid to try new things, who value their mental health as much as their physical health, who have a go and keep going, even when things are hard, will move mountains. They will create supportive, safe, innovative workplaces and a society that is open-minded and continually moves forward.
As for learning and development then? We’ll be able to stop swimming against the current and maintain a steady forward crawl. Focusing our time on providing top quality resources.
And that is the learning and development I want to be a part of.
1 - Source: Britannica, Neuroplasticity, Michael Rugnetta, 2024.
