As students learn to overcome and taked responsbility for their boredom, distractability, frustration and failure, they slowly but surely start winning “games,” advancing to higher levels, and increasing academic, social, athletic and creative accomplishments.

The key is the effort, persistence, and praise (in that order).

I am happy to see the research of Dr. Robert Cloninger at Washington University, who located the circuit in the prefrontal cortex which monitors the reward center of the brain. It seems there a switch there which tells the brain to keep trying when there’s no immediate reward.” Looking at neuroimages, Dr. Cloninger could see this switch light up regularly in some people and hardly at all in others.

What’s causes the difference? “The key is intermittent reinforcement,” says Cloninger. The brain has to learn that frustrating spells can be worked through. “A person who grows up getting too frequent rewards will not have persistence, because they’ll quit when the rewards disappear.”

So thanks, Allen, for encouraging us parents (and grandparents) to reward the effort.

The article ends with a father asking his son this question: “What happens to your brain, again, when it gets to think about something hard?”

“It gets bigger, like a muscle,” he responded, having aced this one before.

Mmmmmm. Think I’ll find something challenging to do today.