During adolescence, the part of the brain that helps with organization, planning and strategizing is not yet finished being built. Jay Giedd, Researcher
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What we need most to improve the quality of our learning is more contact with adults other than parents and teachers. We know what our parents think, because we’ve heard it every day for years. We’re slightly suspicious of what teachers say because they’re actually paid to say that. What we want to know is what do other adults think… and we don’t meet very many of those. A group of teenagers in the UK, as quoted by John Abbott
Those neurological changes in the young brain as it transforms itself mean that adolescents have evolved to be apprentice-like learners, not pupils sitting at desks and waiting instruction. Youngsters who are empowered as adolescents to take charge of their own futures will make better citizens for the future. John Abbott
Adolescence appears to be a deep-seated biological adaptation that makes it essential for the young to go off...to prove themselves, so as to start a life of their own. As such, it is adolescence that drives human development. It is adolescence which forces individuals in every generation to think beyond their own self-imposed limitations.. John Abbott
Robert Epstein, former editor in chief of Psychology Today, shows that teen turmoil is caused by outmoded systems put in place a century ago which destroyed the continuum between childhood and adulthood. Where this continuum still exists in other countries, there is no adolescence.
Isolated from adults, American teens learn everything they know from their media-dominated peers the last people on earth they should be learning from, says Epstein. Epstein explains that our teens are highly capable in some ways more capable than adults and argues strongly against infantilizing young people. We must rediscover the adult in every teen, he says, by giving young people adult authority and responsibility as soon as they can demonstrate readiness. This landmark book will change the thinking about teens for decades to come. Read more Whether the students are struggling or proficient, the program is designed to nurture their natural passion for learning and mastery, challenging them to go beyond the easy and familiar so they can truly excel. The program can be introduced in stages in any middle or high school classroom and enables students of diverse abilities to design and pursue independent course work, special projects, or even artistic presentations, community field work or apprenticeships.
Using this approach, the students take on an increasingly autonomous, self-directed role as they progress. The heart of the program is the action contract (or learning agreement) whereby the student sets challenging yet attainable goals, commits to a path for achieving them, and evaluates the results. Special emphasis is placed on developing skills and competencies that can serve the student well in his or her academic and career endeavors. Read more John Abbott speaks about how an expert can lead the novice (student) through the stages of learning.
John Abbott explores the idea that the stage of adolescence may be one of the core driving forces of human evolution.
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