- November 25, 2024
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In my last column I described young people’s inability to think straight when the emotional portion of the brain hijacks the brain’s pathway to rational thinking (frontal lobes).
Flagler School’s new sex-education curriculum stresses decision making and character building — a good idea because they’re intended to teach adolescents how and why to avoid situations where emotions often get in the way of rational thinking.
I also stressed patience and waiting for a teaching moment. This week I’d like to touch on how to create teaching moments by understanding and exploiting how brains work.
Here’s an example. Recently I listened to a search-and-rescue expert describe some of the health hazards of taking a hundred teenagers on a 14-mile hike in Central Florida during the month of July. We heard about snakes, poison oak, heat exhaustion and a dozen other potential disasters.
I listened, but nothing really captured my attention. Then he described how, in a past trek, a couple of boys had their ears sunburned to the point where they swelled to triple their normal size. I immediately felt a profound sense of responsibility as a chaperone and hung on his every word.
So the question is why had it taken that long to engage me fully? The answer lies in brain biology. Whenever our brains sense that something we are seeing or hearing is novel, a tiny portion of the mid-brain flips on, and this has an almost magical effect on our ability to learn.
This area, called the substantia nigra/ventral tegmental, releases dopamine each time we perceive something as new and interesting. Dopamine literally wakes up our brains, puts our senses on alert and just makes us feel alive. We almost can’t help learning.
The effective parents among us have learned to create novelty, curiosity, or personal relevance with almost everything they try to teach. They create the teaching moment.
Think about the story of the swollen, sunburned ears. The expert’s use of this story turned on my brain. A teenager learning how to behave responsibly, or a chaperone learning how to guide hikers safely, is no different from learning about science, math or how to drive a car. The biology at work doesn’t change.
Now I must add that adolescents ultimately decide what they will internalize and what they will discard, but parents (and teachers) can have a huge part in the process. You can literally raise (or reduce) your child’s IQ by how you turn on or turn off their brain. It’s easier than you might think. I’ll dedicate future columns to this topic.
Enjoy your kids!
