Myths about our Learning Brain

Brain is a very complex structure, made of almost 100 billions neurons. Since the beginning of human history, many disciples tried to study it and to treat its diseases. A prominent importance was also given to the study of human behavior, and its connection with those unknown mental processes.  A lot of progress had been done in this field, but we are still far from a complete comprehension of brain. 

Science in fact gave among the years many wrong explanation of how brain works, and those mistakes are still widely accepted, even though they had been proved wrong. The complexity of brain  lead to a widespread simplification on topics related to it. Once this branch of science was held only by a limited amount of people, but nowadays more and more people are basing their brain-knowledge on urban myths. This kind of behavior can be dangerous, especially if those methods are applied to children's education. In fact it can indeed lead parents to adopt teaching methods that can affect children's growth.  Those are the most common wrong ideas about our learning brain.

1. We use 10% of brain: brain  scans had shown that, no matter what we are doing, our brain is always active. Some areas are less active than others, depending on the activity, but no one is ever completely turned off.  In addition to the 100 billions neurons brain is in fact full of other types of cells, that are always on use. So studying harder will not light up unused neural circuits.
2. Left and right brain people are different: the idea that we have a rational left brain and an intuitive and artistic right has no scientific basis. In fact, according to  John McCrone, language turned out to be represented on both sides of the brain. Areas on the left dealt with aspects of speech such as grammar, while aspects such as intonation lit up the right side. Likewise the right brain proved to be good at general sense of space, while left brain worked when someone thought about objects at particular locations. Humans use both hemispheres for all cognitive functions.
3. Learn one language before one other: the idea of interfering languages suggest that different areas of the brain compete for the same resources. In truth children who learn two languages gain a better knowledge of their structure. Furthermore bilingual children resulted to be more creative and more prepared to solve complex problem than others.
4. Brains of male and female work differently: of course there are many differences in male and female brains, but no one results in how networks of neurons connect while learning new skills. In fact sex differences emerged with evolution because man and woman faced different selective pressure. So sex differences must be adaptive, because brain got used to work toward different goals.