What is it?
In their critical thinking exercise that concludes "Is Your Brain Ready Yet?", Warwick and Rogers (2018, pp. 105-106) invite us to strengthen our understanding of ideas in the reading by applying to other situations.
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The question
- Discuss whether institutions should adapt to suit the different stages of brain development. Explain your reasoning. Examples and evidence will likely also be useful here.
You have 15:00 minutes to plan and write a response to this question. I suggest you divide your time roughly as:
- planning = 4:00 minutes
- writing = 8:00 minutes to quickly turn your preplanning into sentences organized in paragraphs
- editing = 3:00 minutes.
- publish = 0:01 minutes (It's an important part in the writing process, but often the quickest.)
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A useful strategy - as usual
Imagine you are writing for someone who has not read the question you have chosen to answer or the article that the question follows up. Your aim is to clearly communicate your response to that reader, so it might help to paraphrase the chosen question at the start of your response to it.
This is also a useful strategy in exams such as IELTS and TOEFL, where it's important that your independent writing response makes sense independently of the question to which it must respond.
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Reference
- Warwick, L. & Rogers, L. (2018). Skillful 4: Reading & Writing, Student's Book Pack (2nd. ed.). London: Macmillan Education
According to some parts in the article. I think institutions, especially high school because most teenagers study in this type of institution. They should adapt brain development activities or school subjects. For example, seminar and student club by the best they can do. From what I read in the paragraph 3, a sentence that says " the ability of teenagers to make rational decisions is overridden by the rush of dopamine" and other factors, which mean their behaviors and decision making are triggered by those. So that it's obvious that they should have different learning method from adult and childhood because their brain development is in the different stages and to make them grow better.
ReplyDeleteOpal, your idea of providing different activities for different age groups is interesting. Could you develop it a little more. For example, for what age group do you think seminars are more useful according to their brain development and why? And what age group might be best helped by the student clubs you also give as an example?
DeleteFrom my point and experience, the one that should adapt into the difference stage of a brain development is educational institution, and it is the hardest one. In every country that provide a education they should try their best to expand the way to be a collective teaching that can reach to every learner, abstractly think about the learner as some kind of a tree, they’re plenty of different, food, water, light, etc., so the country need to find the way to let them be successful of what they learn and develop into, such as academic and vocational way of learning or even the club that they can join to find themselves, leading to the maximum potential of learning and brain development from what the learner would like to improve. Lastly the country should create the opportunity for them to use their improved brain to spend on the quality job and develop the country, moreover is teaching or being a inspiration for the next generation of learner.
ReplyDeleteAll*
DeleteAll educational institution*
DeleteDefinitely, educational institutions should be adapted by teaching students categorised by stages of their brains. If the institution do so, students can learn more effectively because educational material and environment are well designed to suit them. The more a school treat students properly, the more they can be effective learners.
DeletePoom, I'm sorry, I'm a bit unclear. Do you mean that every country should treat students in education the same collective way at every age, or should different collective teaching methods be used for different age groups? And if the methods are different according to age, what specific methods do you think should be used for the brain development at different age groups, say primary school students, university students, and mature age students at university? (By mature age, I mean, say, 40 years and older - they are an increasingly common group at Australian universities.)
DeleteThere was a lot of fuss in the newspapers today about the female Olympic weight lifter from New Zealand who began life as a man. Many think that if she has different abilities to traditional women, she should be treated differently by the institution that is the Olympic Games. Many clearly think she should not be allowed to compete as a woman.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly, that our brains function differently at different ages seems to me a relevant reason for institutions to treat people differently as a result. In fact, this already happens in many institutions. In kindergartens, because of their brains' lower levels of development, children are not expected to study for the longer, more intense periods that characterize a typical high school day, or a university lecture. And if a six-year old playing with it, even in anger and deliberately, shoots her older brother with their mother's gun, the legal system, the police and courts, would not treat that child as a murderer. Teenagers are generally aware of moral right and wrong in ways that much younger children are not; they know, for example, that shooting people is generally wrong. The brains of teenagers are not fully developed, but thatgives them a stronger tendency to acting on an emotion. It does not mean that they cannot understand the issues involved in a situation. Nonetheless, although a teenager can fully understand that something is wrong, if their undeveloped brain leads to an emotional impulse causing them to do something truly terrible, it would be unreasonable to hold them accountable as a calmly reasoning adult for an impulsive act that they very likely regret as much as anyone, such as shooting their boyfriend's competing lover in a fit of jealousy. At the other end of the scale, older people whose brains are demonstrably leading to reduced cognitive ability should also be treated more generously than young adults with fully funcitoning brains.
But as I think about it, if the decisive criteria is the situation at the time, such as whether has the testosterone level of a woman or not, then other criteria, such as sex or age, should perhaps be considered irrelevant except as indirectly causing relevant factors such as an emotional outburst or greater physical strength.
A final consideration is how our ideas of free will apply here. If adolescents have less free will because of their brain states, do adults have any less?
Do adults have any less free will comparing to adolescents? I think they don't. If free will means that people can choose to do or not to do freely without any factors and causes that determine their actions, both of adults and adolescents have the same level of free will. For example, if my nice and I want to eat an ice cream, we have the same level of free will to decide and take action. According to free will, My nice and I are free to choose for ourselves regardless of any factors or causes to force us to do.
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DeleteBy the way, I don't believe in free will, but I believe in the concept of cause and action. Although we have the feeling that we are free to choose to do, I think that people's actions and desires are driven by some factors such as biological needs and mental needs.
DeleteThank you Emma for directly stating what I was a bit worried about saying. People don't always like it when it is suggested that human free will is really just an illusion created by our brains. It's odd, because if you believe in fate, prophecies, fortune telling or such things, as many people claim to, those things all also entail that what happens, including our decisions, is fully determined by events over which we have no control.
DeleteI like the way this is often brought out in literature, including film versions of great literature. In Shakespeare's Macbeth, for example, the prophecies that the three weird sisters (witches), make at the start of the play all come true: whatever Macbeth thinks he is freely deciding cannot prevent any of the determined events happening as predicted.
In his Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari also emphasizes the importance of this lack of free will as traditionally imagined, and suggests that it will become increasingly important for how we perceive ourselves as humans as the weight of scientific evidence continues to mount.
Reference is made to the article "Is your brain ready yet?" from Skillful 4, the prefrontal cortex which is the section of the brains that controls impulses, emotions, and decision making is not fully develop yet. Therefore, I agree that institutions should take into consideration on the brain stages. Schools and collages should design their programmes to match the brain stages of students. For example, encourage them to learn new languages, so the synapse can be regularly engages and develop in the future. Other institution like the justice system should give less penalty to teenagers compare to adults because teenagers are not at their best in making decisions.
ReplyDeleteI like Beer's specific suggestion that students be encouraged to learn new languages to strengthen and protect from pruning the brain synapses that are needed for that skill. I wish mine had been strengthened that way from an earlier age!
DeleteAfter I read Beer's comment, I think it would be one of motivations for students if they are informed that learning new languages could protect their brains aside from communicating to other people in different countries.
DeleteI like Beer’s school idea but I have a different idea for the justice system. For teenagers, I think it should rely on how to penalize them. Relate to your information that the synapse is still in development so for teenagers we must choose the way to instruct them to do things according to the law.
DeleteI believe the different stages of brain development should be considered in most institutions. Taking schools for example, most of them usually have various levels of education there. If pupils are under five, the most suitable type of school should be a nursery one. This is due to the fact that trained teachers in such school can take care of the pupils better than other counterparts since they have learned and been well trained how to handle and teach the children aged three to five. Thus, that is the key to attention in the different stages of brain development.
ReplyDeleteBest, I'm wondering what specifically is done differently in the nursery schools you mention. What are the specific activities there that are different, on account of the different brain develop of the students at that age, to the activities in schools at other levels?
DeleteTo reply what Peter's mention is that kids at younger age like the kids at kindergarten school should play more than study to help them develop their physical skills rather than comprehensive skill. And high school students should learn more about academic subjects to develop their critical thinking and academic skills for pursue their higher education.
DeleteInstitutions should adapt to suit the different stages of brain development because there are explicit researches of the way people behaves differently in those stages. Teenagers, for example, are in adolescence stage. In this stage, the article "Is your brain ready yet?" mentions that more than 50 per cent of synapses are removed which is a cause of inability of making rational decisions. As a result, young people may have difficulties to deal with problems logically. Therefore, institutions need to take this matter into account and adapt themselves to the scientific findings.
ReplyDeleteX, what kinds of problems, for example, might "young people ... have difficulties to deal with ... logically"? I was also wondering what "young" means in this context. I think my nieces and nephews, who are now in their 30s, are young, but that might not be the age group you had in mind. Also, how specifically should "institutions ... take this matter into account and adapt themselves"? An example or two might be useful.
DeletePeter,
DeleteIn response to your first question, by the meaning of young people, I tried to find a synonym of teenagers in adolescence stage from my example. To be clear, I probably need to add "in this stage" next to young people, don't I?
For your second question, there are a number of teenagers killed in motorcycle crashes every year on account of fast driving. If parents understand adolescent brain, they may realise how irrational decision could affect their children's lives and give them some preventive measures. For example, they perhaps raise awareness of the consequences of irresponsible driving and give safety gears to them.
X,
DeleteI think a more effective way to prevent teenagers being killed in motorcycle crashes would be for parents not to allow them motorcycles, or to insist on always wearing a helmet - safety gear as you suggest. I'm not sure that raising awareness actually helps. It sounds plausible, but just as with cigarette smoking, the fact that people know its dangerous doesn't seem very effective at actually reducing the risky behaviour.
In fact, when my parents gave me a car to drive to school in my last year at high school, I knew it was dangerous to speed, and the thrill from the risk, the dopamine rush, made it exciting, which did not really stop me doing it in races with classmates - we really were very stupid, and looking back, very lucky.
For my idea, the institutions should adapt to suit the different stages of brain development. First reason, child or adolescents can make more clear and rational decisions than adults. So some of their actions are emotional. Another reason is that institutions can affect differences resulting in different ages. Imagination, your father takes your youngest brother, 4 years old, to the zoo. You know you should not jump into an animal cage because it is dangerous and follows the zoo’s rules. But your brother does not, so your father tries to reward your brother if he follows the rule.
ReplyDeleteI like Att's concrete example of a family visit to the zoo. He develops it with enough detail to both clearly illustrate his point and support it with the believable example.
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DeleteI also believe in reward system which is one of great ways to incentivise children and boost their good behaviours. This obviously contrast with the use of physical punishment which can cause violent behaviours among adolescents.
DeleteAccording to the reading in "Is your brain ready yet?" we learned that our brain are develop differently by the age, so institution should adapt to suite the different stage of brain development. For example, the penalty for adolescents are different from adult when they commit the same crime. Because it is consider that juvenile have less critical thinking and less self control since they are not in a mature stage. To be compare this with cliche cases that the poor little kids steal a bun from food store to feed their poor family. Would you cage him in the cell for his action? Or you should give him a chance and give him advice for his act.
ReplyDeleteI am also on the same side with you Naam. In terms of justice, I opine that juvenile crime should have less severe punishment than the one committed by adults. As teenagers' brains have yet to be fully developed, leading them to have irrational thinking misbehave. That is why the stages of brain development should be taken into consideration in this case and I do think it should be adapted in every institution as well.
DeleteWhat about if the rich brat steals a bun because he thinks his rich parents will take care of any problem and his brain gives him a dopamine thrill from stealing?
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ReplyDeleteShould institutions adapt to suit the different stages of brain development? I think they should. Since institutions are an organizations that work to support our societies and young generation, they should understand the causes and effects of the development of people's brains so that they can design and change risky behavior for good. I agree with Bell and McBride (2010) that adolescence is a challenging period, so I think institutions that work closely with them should find a way to provide the right support to help them go through this tough time. For example, when schools understand that teenagers are tend to behave risky because of the flux of dopamine in their brains, the teachers there should have their students do sports or exercises as such activities will also create dopamine. In this way, their students can abandon risky behaviors and addict to their sports instead.
ReplyDeleteI like Emma's specific suggestion that schools use sports as a safe outlet for children to enjoy a dopamine rush of pleasure. But I hated sports when I was in school! I would much sooner have spent an afternoon messing around in the science labs, or sitting in the library.
DeletePeter, if you hated sports, you could enjoy walking--that can also trigger dopamine. I've that you enjoy walking to work and that's great.
Delete*I've heard that you enjoy walking to work.
DeleteEmma, one of the things I've missed this past 18 months of Covid is walking to work. When AUA was as Chamchuri Square, it was about a ten minute walk. The walk to Rajadamri is about 25 minutes, but I get to go through Lumpini Park on this one.
DeleteI'm not sure that my walks usually produce much dopamine, but they are relaxing and pleasant, and good for my health. At the moment, the longest walk I normally take is to Silom Complex, which is also about ten minutes; but my ten minute walks to and from work at Chamchuri Square included a lot of moving around in classrooms as well, which I guess is similar to the gentle exercise of walking.
Now that I'm thinking about it, walking is also a good time to think things over: what I'm reading, lesson plans, and so on.