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Scientist teaches RE parents about the teen brain
Scientist and author Frances E. Jensen gave parents and RE faculty a science lesson on adolescent brain development to explain why teens learn faster than adults but are more prone to reckless behavior, developing addictions and night-owl tendencies. Jensen's Feb. 22 lecture at the Lewis Family Auditorium was designed to counter myth with scientific fact and provide the adults in attendance with an understanding of why teens behave as they do.
Jensen, author of The Teenage Brain: A Neuroscientist's Survival Guide to Raising Adolescents and Young Adults and chair of the neurology department at the University of Pennsylvania, called adolescents "super learners" and "learning machines," explaining that they possess a synaptic plasticity that makes it easy for them to absorb information – good and bad.
Yet the area of the brain that governs judgment, impulse control and decision making, the prefrontal cortex, doesn't fully mature until students are well out of college – in their mid- to late-20s. When teens' brains are exposed to positive influences, such as intellectual challenges, they will learn relatively fast and, in fact, may even see an increase in IQ. When their brains are exposed to dangerous things, such as addictive drugs, they are not only more likely to make poor decisions, but also in greater jeopardy than adults of becoming hooked.
Jensen, who also opened the floor to a short Q and A, advised parents to feel empowered by the information she shared, urging them to be patient with their teens while helping them make sound decisions.
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Yet the area of the brain that governs judgment, impulse control and decision making, the prefrontal cortex, doesn't fully mature until students are well out of college – in their mid- to late-20s. When teens' brains are exposed to positive influences, such as intellectual challenges, they will learn relatively fast and, in fact, may even see an increase in IQ. When their brains are exposed to dangerous things, such as addictive drugs, they are not only more likely to make poor decisions, but also in greater jeopardy than adults of becoming hooked.
Jensen, who also opened the floor to a short Q and A, advised parents to feel empowered by the information she shared, urging them to be patient with their teens while helping them make sound decisions.
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Founded in 1903, Ransom Everglades School is a coeducational, college preparatory day school for grades 6 - 12 located on two campuses in Coconut Grove, Florida. Ransom Everglades School produces graduates who "believe that they are in the world not so much for what they can get out of it as for what they can put into it." The school provides rigorous college preparation that promotes the student's sense of identity, community, personal integrity and values for a productive and satisfying life, and prepares the student to lead and to contribute to society.
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Ransom Everglades School®, The RE Way™, RE Pathways™ and Bowden Fellowships in the Humanities™ are trademarks of Ransom Everglades School.