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ased on brain research, educators increasingly understand and recognize the current teaching methods are not as successful as we all thought.

For decades, the question about how flexible our intelligence is has been major subject of study and since the advanced research techniques like MRIs and CTs, we are beginning to understand more how are brain functions and what the impact is on learning. The result is an enormous amount of data on this topic.

However, to date, we still have no definite answer to the question of flexibility. Research shows that both DNA (nature) and socialization (nurture) are responsible for the way we behave and learn. But the amount of influence of both elements is still unclear and it might take another few decades to get a comprehensible answer to this question.

Nevertheless, there is more and more evidence that intelligence is in fact more expandable then we ever thought.

One very striking study by Rosenthal and Jacobson that already gives evidence of flexibility of the brain was conducted a long time ago, in 1968. This research shows that pupils who are treated in schools as if they have a high intelligence at the end of the day come out more intelligent and vice versa.

Based on these findings and on lots of other research we can conclude that without knowing precisely what the balance between nature and nurture is, intelligence is more flexible then we thought. Thinking this through carefully, we can extend this idea into learning and teaching. Because if intelligence is more flexible, it is also learnable! And if that is the case, then as a consequence learning is teachable.

Dweck et al (2007) suggest that we should look at the brain as a muscle. This concept gives a good picture of the fact that the brain not only can be filled, but more significantly, can be expanded! Guy Claxton (2009) developed that thought into the concept of making schools more aware of their role as a brain gym.

Of course, Claxton acknowledges that the brain is not a muscle, and schools are more than gyms, but the model is interesting.

This learning gym would be a place that stretches and strengthens the learning capacities of pupils. Schools then become a place where learning muscles are stretched and students go to school to develop their learning fitness.

On the other hand, we all learn differently and at a different pace, and with help from others Claxton tried to answer that question. He identified four main skills that in his view make the difference.

These skills are: resilience, relation, reflectiveness and resourcefulness.

Resilience means sticking at tasks even when they appear difficult or cause feelings like fear and frustration. Resourcefulness is finding solutions to problems. Reflection is thinking about problems and coming up with solutions. And relation focuses on being ready, willing and able to learn alone and with others.

Claxton and others believe that the key is not capacity of the brain but these four higher order thinking skills. If this is the case, then we can help everybody learn through talking, teaching, living and learning these skills, and as a result we become empowered in our own learning.

What is very important is the notion that we are all role models showing our learning, our resourcefulness and how we work together. How can we ask someone to be resilient when we are not ourselves?

A grand story in this respect is from Gandhi, who was asked by a mother to tell her child to stop eating candy because, as we all know, it is unhealthy. Gandhi asked her to come back in a week.

After a week she came back and Gandhi said to the child: "Stop eating candy!" The mother was astonished. When asked about it, Gandhi said: "How can I ask someone to stop doing something when I am doing it too? And it took me a week to stop eating candy".

Things that help being this role model are to be a visible learner and to tell when you are doing difficult things.

Other ideas are "daring not to know", "show your thinking in progress" or have your own learning project and talk about the steps you have to make, the hard times you have and the practice it needs.

It is also important to have high expectations of your own learning (in an inviting and challenging way) because only then can you have high expectation of others.

It is challenging to know that it will take time for the assumptions about the flexibility of the brain to change. As Machiavelli put it: "There is nothing more difficult . to undertake, nor more doubtful of success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things ..." Nevertheless, are we not resilient, reflective and resourceful? Thus: Yes we can!