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We come with all the instructions and raw material for building adult bodies – for example, growing full -sized and functioning ears and lungs – and also with the capacity to develop the complete set of abilities that has helped our species survive and evolve over two billion years. We are born with predispositions for everything from our sense of vision to language and social skills. It’s all in there, waiting to unfold.
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About one hundred years ago, American psychologists, observing the chaotic and dysfunctional life of adolescents with no purposeful work to do and no role models to follow, started to define adolescence as a kind of disease brought on, they assumed, by the rapid development of sex hormones.
Read more We have all seen youth who can spend hours perfecting complicated skateboarding feats, learning new computer games or mastering animation techniques – it is impossible to stop them from learning. Yet these same teens may struggle with learning in a classroom setting. Part of the problem is that classroom learning is often abstract, disconnected from any real-life application or the natural context for using new information.
Read more It’s no secret when we look at the history of Western education that part of the purpose of secondary school was to make sure that adolescents learned the skills needed for the factory floor and the office desk – things like respecting authority, staying on task and an ability to follow instructions. Schools and learning activities were structured accordingly.
Read more Although many people have begun to understand the importance of the [[early years]] to human development, achievement and lifelong success, we have been slow to recognize the elephant in our midst—the adolescent learner. Dropout statistics, plummeting rates of school connectedness, declining academic performance and an increased dislike of school are [[signs of trouble]] underlining a disturbing pattern of disengagement as youth enter their teens. It seems that we may be [[getting it wrong]] for adolescents learners more than anyone in our schools.
Read more Human babies are born with incredibly premature brains – apparently the result of an evolutionary compromise.
Read more We now know more about how humans learn than we ever have before. Research in everything from evolutionary biology to cognitive science to neurobiology has contributed to our current understanding. Some information is very new, like the amazing insights only recently available through brain-imaging technology. Other pieces of information are not so new, but they paint a new picture when they are put together with different pieces of the puzzle.
There is, of course, no way to summarize everything about human learning in a few pages on a website. Nor is that the intent. There are far too many individual details on everything from optimal group size to how minute portions of the brain decode written language. This site is instead about intersection and synthesis – about stepping back to look at the big picture instead of latching on to disconnected bits of information to try to repair problem areas here and there. Read more The impact on children of [emotionally adept] parenting is extraordinarily sweeping …beyond [a better relationship with their parents], these children also are better at handling their own emotions, are more effectively at soothing themselves when upset, and get upset less often. The children are also more relaxed biologically with lower levels of stress hormones and other physiological indicators of emotional arousal. Other advantages are social: these children are more popular with and are better-liked by their peers, and are seen by their teachers as more socially skilled. Their parents and teachers alike rate these children as having fewer behavioural problems such as rudeness or aggressiveness. Finally, the benefits are cognitive; these children can pay attention better, and so are more effective learners. Holding IQ constant, the five-year-olds whose parents were good coaches had higher achievement scores in math and reading when they reached third grade (a powerful argument for teaching emotional skills to help prepare children for learning as well as life). Thus the payoff for children whose parents are emotionally adept is a surprising – almost astounding – range of advantages across, and beyond, the spectrum of emotional intelligence.
-Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence Read more |
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