Biology of a teen brain

BY SARA KEDDY

Kings County Register

Look beyond the behavior a teenager’s brain may prompt and consider the potential.

Berwick educator and new author Barry Corbin says “Unleashing the Potential of the Teenage Brain” looks at teen brain biology - and the best way to teach it.

“If you extrapolate between the research in neuroscience and what goes on in a classroom, does it mean anything for teaching and learning?” he asks.

“It does - a great deal.”

Over a career as a teacher, administrator and peer trainer for the Valley Regional School Board, Corbin took an interest in “brain-based teaching” in the 1990s, when interest in the topic was growing. With his own research, reading and work - and honest talks with teenage students in the Valley’s own alternative high school programs - years of notes and ideas are now compiled in a “trade book” meant to help teachers and parents.

“MRIs and brain scans - you have people do things and see what’s working in which parts of the brain - have discovered teenage brains are different.”

It was thought, he says, by the time humans reach age 12 or 13, their brains are just smaller than an adult’s.

“It’s not - it’s undergoing a huge reorganization, an expanding of new neural pathways and a pruning of ones that aren’t getting used.”

It’s the perfect time to expose teenagers to new interests, challenges, skill development, relationship foundations and learning.

Instead, Corbin says, the education system’s “cells and bells” of classrooms and schedules doesn’t match the potential of a teen brain.

“High school can be really restrictive and limiting for some kids. The richer an experience we can give adolescents, the bigger brain formations we leave open for the future - think how painful it is for adults to learn a new language.”

That teen brain potential, though, is sometimes easy to miss under the flipside of teen brain change: the part of the brain that evaluates risk is slow to develop, it sometimes reads emotional signals in others inappropriately, teens need hours of sleep: later at night and later into the morning; they need physical activity to stimulate memory development, small group learning, good nutrition and solid relationships with adults.

Throw in hormones, peer pressure, a need for independence, an over-scheduled extracurricular life that may include a job; an educational system that first cuts music, drama, guidance and physical education in schools with hundreds of students....

“There should be a transitional zone for students, either in Grades 5 to 8 or 6 to 9: maybe 200 or 300 students, time to have day-to-day contact with adults as coaches, teachers and counsellors; the academics, but also the myriad clubs, sports, drama - it doesn’t happen in a factory school.”

Corbin is excited by the field and what it could mean: more science-based proof for providing what teens need from education at a “ready for anything” stage in their brain development.

“I like teenagers - they can be frustrating and exasperating, but there’s tremendous potential for them all to be something great.

“With the right skills, education, counselling, support - when they get to age 18 or 20, they’ll be different people. We helped them do it.”