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Attack of the Teenage Brain!: Understanding and Supporting the Weird and Wonderful Adolescent Learner by John Medina
Rebecca Gotlieb
Rebecca Gotlieb

John Medina, developmental molecular biologist and New York Times best-selling author, has written a book about how to parent and teach teenagers in light of what we know about adolescent social, cognitive, and neural development.  In Attack of the Teenage Brain!: Understanding and Supporting the Weird and Wonderful Adolescent Learner, Medina emphasizes that designing better high schools will require us to consider the development of executive functioning skills during adolescence.

Paradoxically, while elementary schools and schools of higher education in the U.S. are exceptionally strong, our high schools have mediocre performance by international standards. Investing in executive functioning, or the skills that help us effectively and cooperatively get things done, may offer our best opportunity for improving U.S. high schools, Medina argues. Countries whose high schools perform better than ours, also have adolescents with stronger abilities to self-regulate, switch perspective, and temporarily store and manipulate information—the three core components of executive functioning. Medina reviews research by Walter Mischel (reviewed here by Learning and The Brain previously) that shows that the ability to delay gratification, a component of executive functioning, can predict many aspects of children’s future personal, academic, and career success.

To understand how to capitalize on adolescents’ executive functioning skills, it is helpful to understand how the brain changes during adolescence. Using clear, vivid, and accessible analogies, Medina explains several aspects of adolescent neural development that have implications for how we teach them. For example, adolescents’ limbic areas—areas responsible for many of our emotional responses—reach mature levels before the prefrontal cortex, an area responsible for decision-making, planning, and inhibition. This mismatching maturational profile partially explains why adolescence is a time of great vulnerability, why adolescents are more drawn to rewards than deterred by adverse consequences, why they are sensitive to peer influence, and why rational decision-making is still a work-in-progress during adolescence.

In light of these developmental vulnerabilities of adolescence, how could we design better schools for teenagers? The answer begins with factors outside of school. Feelings of safety and strong adult relationships are critical for learning.  Indeed, adolescents in homes that feel safe have stronger executive functioning abilities. Using a parenting style (or teaching style) that both sets high expectations of children and provides large amounts of emotional responsiveness and love benefits students’ executive functioning greatly, and thus also their performance in school. Similarly, modeling adult relationships (e.g., between two parents) where conflicts can be resolved using calm and honest communication can offer these same benefits.

Exceptional teachers can buffer against the effects of unstable relationships at home, but there is no substitute for good parenting. To help parents employ an ideal parenting style and model a healthy conflict resolution style, schools should provide night classes to parents to help them learn to create more stable relationships at home. A complementary change would be for high schools to require social-emotional learning initiatives that include a sequenced progression through skills, active application of skills, and a focus on a few critical social skills (e.g., empathy). These programs have been linked to students doing better in school and enjoying it more.

Age fourteen is the peak onset of mental health disorders. High schools should be designed to help navigate the mental health challenges that arise during adolescence. For example, while fewer than 20% of teenagers spend more than 20 minutes a day in physical activity, exercise has been linked to cognitive skill, academic performance, and cerebrovascular density in key brain areas. Most importantly, exercise is about as helpful as antidepressants in treating depression. Medina argues that a gym should be the center piece of a school and sitting time should be replaced with walking time.

Starting school later in the morning to align with the natural shift in sleep patterns that occur during adolescence could help improve mental health and academic performance, and actually save districts money in the long run. Electronic and social media use, and especially the stimulation of electronic multi-tasking, may be contributing to high rates of anxiety in adolescence.  Mindfulness exercise can be an antidote, helping to regulate emotions and mood, improve focus, and reduce pain. Medina calls for the integration of mindfulness practices into schools and the creation of mindfulness rooms.

As exemplified throughout this book, Medina makes an argument likely to resonate with Learning and the Brain readers—cognitive neuroscience and education typically are studied separately from one another, but to support adolescents’ success and development, we need to consider multiple forms of development together. Indeed the neuropsychologically derived principles that Medina suggests are likely to improve adolescents’ learning and well-being. Parents, teachers, and school administrators would do well to head his advice.

Medina, J. (2018).  Attack of the Teenage Brain!: Understanding and Supporting the Weird and Wonderful Adolescent Learner. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

 

 

 

A Hidden Adolescent Struggle: Identifying Complex Emotions
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson

Teenagers often baffle adults.

adolescent emotionThe moody sulkiness that erupts into warmth and affection. The impressive academic accomplishment that precedes an idiotic, immature decision.

(How often have you had this conversation:

YOU: What on earth were you thinking?

TEEN: That’s just it. I wasn’t thinking.)

Of course, teenagers often baffle themselves. And according to recent research, some of that confusion may result from difficulty understanding their own emotions.

Emotion Differentiation

Researchers who study emotions often focus on our ability to distinguish among them.

For instance: when I see a picture of rotting food, I might be disgusted and upset. However, I’m not angry or scared.

Researchers call this ability “emotion differentiation.” Unsurprisingly, individuals who succeed at emotion differentiation see other kinds of success. They’re good at coping with difficult emotional situations. They’re less likely to rely on alcohol to get through tough times.

To understand adolescent emotion, we might ask: how good are teens at emotion differentiation?

Are they better at it than children? Than adults? In other words, how does this capacity develop over time?

Adolescent Emotion: Seeming Weakness

Erik Nook recently investigated this question, and came up with an intriguing answer.

He and his colleagues showed people (age range 5 to 24) pictures, and asked them to rate their emotional responses to them. Focusing on negative emotions, Nook asked participants how “angry, upset, sad, disgusted, and scared” each picture made them.

For example: if a participant gave the highest rating to all five emotions, that response pattern showed little emotional differentiation. All five emotions were experienced equally.

If, however, he gave a high rating to “scared,” a medium rating to “disgusted,” and a low rating to the other three, that pattern showed high emotional differentiation.

What did they find?

Children and adults distinguish among emotions better than adolescents do.

That is: children and adults can say “I’m feeling upset, but not scared.” Adolescents, however, have a harder time drawing those distinctions. Their negative emotions swirl together in a chaotic muddle.

Adolescent Emotion: Hidden Strength

But why is this so?

Nook & Co. investigated several competing hypotheses. Their answer reveals a hidden strength in adolescent emotion processing.

It turns out that children are good at distinguishing among emotions because they don’t really understand it’s possible to experience more than one emotion at a time.

In other words: young children report that they’re feeling disgusted but not sad because they don’t recognize it’s possible to feel both disgusted and sad.

Adolescents, however, DO recognize the possibility of feeling multiple emotions. And yet, because this understanding arrives freshly with adolescence, teens don’t yet have much practice differentiating among them.

As Nook and colleagues write:

children have high emotion differentiation because they experience emotions one at a time, whereas adults have high emotion differentiation potentially because of increased ability to specifically identify co-experienced emotions.

Adolescents, however, fall between these two stools. They do recognize the possibility of experience multiple emotions, but don’t yet have enough practice at sorting out which is which.

Teaching Implications

As so often happens, this research guides us in two directions. Teachers should both think this way and do this thing.

Think this way. With this clearer understanding of adolescent emotion, we can clear our own heads when we cross paths with a teen in an emotional tasmanian-devil vortex.

Rather than say to ourselves “why is this 17-year-old melting down like a child?,” we can say “Aha! He’s aware that he’s experiencing multiple emotions, but he’s not sure which is which. That confusion has led to an atypical emotional outburst.”

This simple understanding may help us stay calm despite adolescent angst.

Do this thing. Adolescents know that they’re feeling many things, but they don’t yet have much experience naming them simultaneously. We can help them.

In the emotional moment itself, we can ask guiding questions and offer potential labels. As always, teacherly guidance can show teens the way in difficult moments.

Also, in our teaching, we can highlight moments of emotional complexity. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, does Janie admire Jody Starks, or hate him? Fear him, or pity him? Perhaps, all at the same time?

In this way, the curriculum that we teach can help adolescents develop emotion differentiation.

 

 

Two final notes.

First: we’ve written about work from Leah Somerville’s lab before. If you want to know more about adolescence, look here or here.

Second: one of the co-authors of this study is Stephanie Sasse, one-time editor of this blog. Congratulations!

Adolescents and Self-Control: Do Teens Recognize High Stakes?
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson

Anyone who works with teenagers — teachers and parents — wonders about the mystery of adolescent self-control.

At times, they prove capable of magnificent cognitive accomplishment.Adolescent self-control

(A high-school junior I taught once composed a new soliloquy for Hamlet. Speaking of Claudius — the uncle who murdered Hamlet’s own father — Hamlet says: “My unfather unfathered me.” I think the Bard himself envies that line.)

And, at other times, they baffle us with their extraordinary foolishness.

(At the next Learning and the Brain conference, ask me about the teens who kidnapped a teacher’s dog as a gesture of respect and affection.)

How do we make sense of this puzzle?

Adolescent Self-Control: High Stakes and Mistakes

Recent research offers one intriguing answer.

Catherine Insel, working as part of Leah Somerville’s lab, wondered if teens recognize the difference between high stakes and low stakes. Better said: she wanted to know if they behaved differently in those distinct settings.

She had students aged 13-20 perform a “go/no-go task.” When they saw a blue circle or a yellow circle or a purpley circle, they pressed a button. When they saw a stripey circle, they did NOT press the button. That is, they had to inhibit the instinct to press the button.

That’s a kind of self-control.

Some of the time, they faced small rewards and penalties: plus twenty cents for getting it right, minus ten cents for getting it wrong.

Some of the time, they faced larger rewards and penalties: plus one dollar for getting it right, minutes fifty cents for getting it wrong.

You might predict that adolescents would be more careful when the stakes were higher. That is, their score would be better when a WHOLE DOLLAR was on the line.

But: nope. That’s not what happened.

In the age groups from 13-18, they did equally well on low- and high-stakes tasks. Only the 19- and 20-year-olds were measurably better at high-stakes than low-stakes.

Put simply: adolescents simply didn’t respond to the difference between high-stakes and low-stakes tests.

Adolescent Self-control: The Brain Part

So far, Insel and colleagues were looking at behavior; that’s the study of psychology. They also looked at brain differences; that’s the study of neuroscience.

In particular, they focused on two brain areas.

The pre-frontal cortex — the part of the brain just behind the forehead — helps manage “higher” brain processes, such as inhibition.

The striatum — deep in the center of the brain — is a key part of the “reward network,” and influences motivation and decision-making.

(By the way, almost ALL brain regions — including the pre-frontal cortex and the striatum — participate in MANY different brain functions.)

They found that the connection between these regions matures over time.

That is, the self-control functions of the pre-frontal cortex are increasingly able to manage the reward networks of the striatum.

No wonder, then, that adolescents get better at controlling their impulses. Only gradually does the “control” part of the brain take firm control over the “impulse” part of the brain.

Teaching Implications

Insel’s research shows not only THAT teens don’t effectively distinguish between high- and low-stakes; it helps explain WHY they don’t: the appropriate brain networks haven’t fully matured.

This research suggests that high-stakes testing just might not be developmentally appropriate for this age group.

After all: adults recognize the importance of high-stakes work. We know to prepare for job interviews differently than we do for daily meetings. We know to be on our best behavior when we meet potential future in-laws; perhaps we relax a bit once they’re actual in-laws.

Teens, however, just don’t recognize that distinction as well.

In other words: if you needed another reason to downplay high-stakes testing, Insel and Somerville’s research provides just that.

More to Know

If you’re particularly interesting in this topic, we’ve posted about it frequently on this blog.

Here’s a link to Somerville’s work, in which she explores the boundaries between adolescence ad adulthood.

Here’s a Ted-talk by Sarah-Jayne Blakemore exploring the mysteries of adolescence.

Richard Cash is running an LatB Workshop specifically on self-regulation. You can check it out here. And, I’m running a Learning and the Brain workshop on teaching adolescents in April. Click here if you’re interested in learning more.