Adolescent Brain Cheat Sheet

A Quick Guide for Teachers, because there’s a lot going on in that brain.

It’s not like your (adult) brain. It’s really useful to know about some of the novel mechanisms going on in it.

An adolescent has 3 basic jobs:

  1. They need prepare to move out (i.e. be able to be independent)
  2. They need to know what to do with their lives (i.e. home in on what’s important)
  3. They need to work out how to make good decisions (because the alternatives are not good).

To facilitate this inside the adolescent’s brain:

  • dopamine has a bigger influence than before or after adolescence
  • unused synapses are pruned and there’s a thickening of insulation around the nerves that are used a lot
  • the prefrontal cortex matures (this decision making bit is the last bit of the brain to do so).

NB: This all takes energy… so you know how tired they get…?

So, what does the brain do to make these things happen?

  1. It privileges interactions with ‘not-family’, (i.e. friends) using dopamine as a mechanism for reward/reinforcement, or anticipated reward. This establishes connections with people who will support and help them when they move away.
  2. It strengthens connections about things of interest and lets other connections wither away; this helps them to learn what they need to survive, and find what’s important to thrive.
  3. It matures the executive function piece last, and that enables the risk-taking/explorative behaviour that would be inhibited if it matured too early.

NB: These are all biological. You don’t need to teach them any of it.

So, what might help in the classroom?

  • If they say they’re bored, it’s not personal. You’re ‘competing’ with the big dopamine hit from making connections with friends.  Avoid games/competition/working with ‘friends’ which produce the ‘engagement illusion’ because that’s helping with that dopamine hit.
  • Anticipation of reward is also a big dopamine hit, and we can use that by indicating the reward of learning (and they are programmed to learn!), and novelty also helps (changing activity, not explosions)
  • Broadening their horizons means that when that pruning happens their world is opened up to SO many more possibilities!

And that’s the point of education!

Find out more here: Why DO they say ‘it’s boring’?