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College
Prep
Inside the Teenage Brain
BY DAVE PETERSON
© Copyright
2000 by Parents' Press
Photo by Skjold
Photographs,
all rights
Good news!During the past year or so, science has shared some welcome information your brain is growing!
As recently as 1996, a Newsweek article reported that most brain growth occurred during our first two years of life, and was pretty much over by age 4.
Then in January, 2000, the New York Times reported research from the University of California, Irvine and the University of Southern California showing that major neuron growth continued through age 5 or 6.
The next month, Newsweek's Sharon Begley reported exciting findings by Jay Giedd of the National Institute of Mental Health: MRI studies of teenage brains showed a dramatic second growth spurt in brain development, caused by those same hormones that gave puberty a bad name! Starting around age 10 to 12, your mental powers get a second chance to expand throughout the teen years. What does all this mean to you?
The
quality of your experiences actually develops your brain; your
environment will determine your abilities.
But
it's not simply an expansion of capacity; information and experience
you judge as not important is "strained out" and only
data meaningful to you is kept.
Associations
are crucial; new experiences, in order to be used, must be connected
to previous ones. You must think about what comes your way.
Early
experiences impact on later abilities; intelligence is not "fixed"
by age 2.
At
puberty, your physical and emotional development create "windows"
or prime times for learning. Typically, these are the middle
school and high school years.
All
along, your emotions strongly impact on learning skills. Motivation
and positive feelings help you learn; stress and negative feelings
will hinder your learning.
You
have many "intelligences," far more than simply an
IQ. Examples:
Linguistic or verbal, used by speakers, writers, readers,
listeners.
Logical-mathematical, used by scientists, reasoners, lawyers,
researchers.
Spatial, needed by engineers, surgeons, sculptors, painters,
craftspersons.
Musical, found in musicians, composers, dancers, actors.
Kinesthetic, crucial for athletes, performers, craftspersons,
builders.
Interpersonal, key for sellers, leaders, teachers, service
workers.
Intra-personal, used for understanding self and others,
feeling empathy.
No one has the
same pattern of these varying abilities; look around you!
And no test measures them all; school exams and college admissions
tests measure just the first two.
Dr. Giedd concludes, "Teens have the power to determine (the direction of) their own brain development whether they do art or music or sports or videogames or books, those brain structures are adapted accordingly." (And by inference, those structures not stimulated may be pruned away for allow for the growth areas.)
Let's get specific.
The NIMH studies in the Feb. 28, 2000 Newsweek note:
Brain size
may stabilize by age 5 but brain growth and change continues
through the teen years in differing ways.
Nerve cells
aiding intelligence, consciousness, and self-awareness keep growing
even into a person's 20s.
Frontal lobes
that aid self-control, judgment, emotional maturity, and organizing
and planning ability grow again, starting at about age 10 for
girls, 12 for boys.
Puberty stimulates
brain focusing abilities expand if stimulated or shrink
if neglected.
Each part
of the brain improves in different ways. The parietal lobes controlling
sight, sound, and speech, the interconnecting circuits, the temporal
lobes that control language and emotions, the hippocampus that
creates memories, and the amygdala controlling fear and anger
mature with androgen, a male hormone.
Second chance?
"From birth through the late teens, the brain adds billions of new cells, building new circuits of freshly made neurons as teenagers interact with their environments." (New York Times)
"Maturity is not simply a matter of slipping 'software' (learning) into existing equipment. Instead the 'hardware' changes itself, in those directions stimulated. Think of it as nature's way of giving us a second chance!" (NIMH)
How can you put this exciting new opportunity to work for you? Try asking yourself:
How
do I spend my mental time and energy at the present time?
Which
reasoning skills am I therefore building the most?
Thus,
which brain cells are being pruned away or "strained out"
by neglect?
How
am I selecting what I think about?
How
much time and energy do I actually focus on my mental growth
skills?
What
effect will these choices have on my future success in college?
In my career? In life itself?
Can you spot places where change will benefit your future?
|
COLLEGE
PREP Dave Peterson is a college counselor, a former college admissions officer and a consultant to the College Board. He used to run the "old" America Online/College Board college admissions message boards under the screen name of CBD Dave. |
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