Attack of the Teenage Brain- part 2

John Medina's text, Attack of the Teenage Brain!, is a delightful read whose quest is to better understand the neuroscience behind executive function (EF) and how to improve it and thus improve academic success. He uses humor and a rich composite of cultural references to explain and explore research and how it relates to teenagers. His well-researched book is highly readable. His target audience is teachers, but parents and perhaps some parts teenagers would benefit form this understanding.

Medina organizes his book around how to change education to develop EF in teenagers and thus improve their performance. His three pronged approach includes the following components of changing the learning environment:

• Create night school for parents within the existing school


• Engage certified faculty to design and implement a curriculum around positive, evidence based marital practice


• Work with schools of education to create parenting curriculum and insert it into teacher training


• enlist these newly trained staff to create and implement the curriculum- compensate them appropriately


• Partner with researches to evaluate the success of these curriculum


• Design schools centered around a gym


• implement a physical movement curriculum and encourage universal participation in organized sports


• change start times to be compatible with brain development


• Implement a mandatory SEL program that emphasizes empathy


• designate a mindfulness room painted green


• Use certified instructors to implement a mindfulness program that has been verified by research. 

p.200-201

Much of this advice centers around three components: teach parents, exercise children and produce research to refine programing. In my previous post I talked about the exercise piece.

EF is affectionately described as "the ability to get something done- and not punch someone in the nose while doing it" (p. 13). Medina organizes EF into three components: response inhibition, cognitive flexibility and working memory. It is easy to understand how these three elements underlie much school success. Students who display strong skills in these areas tend to be far more successful in both school and life than those who do not. They represent soft skills that are important to life after school that we often do a poor job teaching because they are not assessed, are difficult to assess objectively and take extensive time to develop in many students but develop very easily and readily in others (much like reading- can you imagine an EF remediation program as wide-reaching as the reading intervention programs we have today?).

Medina highlights three elements that are essential to understand when talking about learning. First, the brain is interested in survival not learning (p. 83). Second, "human learning is primarily a relational proposition" (p. 87). Human survival was based on working together to make us bigger and scarier and more successful than other apex predators. We need each other to survive. Third, the more fear in our lives, the more we focus on mere survival than on relationships. Safety enables learning. Knowing this information allows us to understand how the kids interact in school- demystifying some of the frustrating behaviors that teenagers exhibit.

Medina highlights the idea that parents are the most important element in a child and teenagers life. Thus he sees parental training as important. The most successful parenting style and teaching style is authoritative- places limits on behavior, explains the rationale for the limits, provides defined feedback about performance, imposes consequences for not meeting the expectations and gradually releases control as children grow and develop. This concept is seen repeatedly in the research and is why the author considers parenting classes so important.

Medina addresses the idea of screen time. Screens seem omnipresent in our current lives. Our phones, our 1:1 devices, TVs, video games, tablets, cars, some refrigerators and the list goes on. Is screen time good or bad. Kids spend an average of 9 hours in front of a screen a day (p. 169). Assessing and understanding the impact of this activity on children is important. Research is somewhat inconclusive. Screen time before bed decreases sleep- this is bad. We need to address the screens in the evening even though it is a hard ask. Screen time decrease understanding of non-verbal emotional cues (p. 171), but social media use increased ability of teens empathetic ability (p. 170). Heavy media multitaskers have poorer performance on filtering tasks than light media multitaskers (p. 185). This is one area where Medina does not discuss the challenge of causation- media multitasking decreases filtering and task switching skills or people who are poor at filtering and switching chose to be media multitaskers.

Medina discusses the benefits of mindfulness and how to develop it through mediation. He showcases how being mindful decreases anxiety and depression. Since as many as a quarter of teenage girls suffer with anxiety, most undiagnosed, identifying ways to address it seem prudent. Meditation is a way to help teens deal with the stress of their lives. While we might hear people say things like, "What's the big deal? When you get older you'll see how trivial that is," to the teen, it is a big deal. Their lives have not given them the big picture yet and they cannot take that perspective.

Understanding how teenage brains work can help us frame programs that can teach them more successfully. We need to reach these youngsters. We cannot keep doing the same thing since we need better results and ever before.

Attack of the Teenage Brain! part 1 exercise

John Medina's text, Attack of the Teenage Brain!, is a delightful read whose quest is to better understand the neuroscience behind executive function (EF) and how to improve it and thus improve academic success. He uses humor and a rich composite of cultural references to explain and explore research and how it relates to teenagers. I know there is lots to digest in this book so I am going to hone in on one area today- exercise.

Exercise has the potential to improve executive function, academic success and emotional health. John points out the research to support these assertions. It reminds me of similar research suggesting that an hour of aerobic exercise per day significantly reduces ADHD related problems. Exercise is also given credit for reducing stress, weight and depression.

First, lets look at strictly the impact of exercise on the body. It increases blood flow. The brain, while only 2-3% of body mass consumes 20% of ingested energy (p. 146). It needs blood to survive. When we increase blood flow, we increase alertness and ability to focus. (ADHD anyone?) Our teenage students who take chronic sleep deprivation to a level of near omnipresence, come to school sleepy. If we get them up and moving, we can sustain their attention better because their brains have enough oxygen to work. If we make them work harder- aerobic activity- that blood flow improvement lasts longer, builds vessels and capacity. Our brains work better with more activity. Students who participate in regular activity actually sleep better than those who do not exercise. Studies have shown that this increases academic achievement to the tune of a letter grade for every 15 minutes of daily activity (p. 137). If we want our kids to do better in school, lets make them work out to activate their brains and prepare them to learn. There will be a side effect of better behavior as students are more able to self-regulate their behavior, increase their focus and engage in the opportunities we present.

The research that John pointed out indicated that cognitively challenging exercise such as organized sports, or, I imagine, watching a new aerobic routine and trying to keep up, increases EF (p. 116). No cognitive challenge, however, was required to improve mood. Since suicide is a leading cause of death for teenagers (and a leading cause of impairment when it goes wrong) and most mental illnesses begin to establish themselves in early teenage years, providing a vehicle for reducing stress and depression seems like an important goal. (Stress does have a significant impact on the brain's ability to learn.) Again our evidence based practice involves activity. Be sure that our middle schoolers still have recess where they can go outside and play. Have PE class available more often. My daughter's school moved from one 80 minute block of PE every 4 days to 2-50 minute blocks every 4 days. The research certainly supports this move to improve academic performance and mental health of our kids. Tight budgets should not keep kids from accessing PE. Our era of intense focus on test performance should not pull PE so that kids can have more time for ELA and math. These things are improved by PE, even if time is taken away from those core areas. A difficult proposition to swallow, but the research supports it.

John's prescription for increasing EF, academic achievement and mental health is exercise. Regular, aerobic and cognitively challenging movements for on a daily basis. While genetics are instrumental is a students' inclination toward EF disorders like ADHD, changing the environmental situation a child is in will improve their situation. It may not take away the problems, but it will offer an avenue for improvement- one that does not involve medication or changing the home living environment. Lets try to change what is in our control to improve student success. Instead of cake, let the mantra be let them eat exercise.

Better than carrots or sticks

Managing classrooms is a challenge. Some schools are identified as needing support when they suspend too many kids or too many in a subgroup. I spent the last year working in one such program where they were trying to implement Positive Behavior and intervention supports (PBIS). They were not fully engaged and did not seem to be making much progress. When I read Dominique Smith, Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey's book,

I thought about many of the challenges of the school. I appreciated that they were trying to implement an evidence based program of management, but they were still struggling. This book talked about some nuisances that would, potentially lead to greater success.

Both Restorative Practices and PBIS share the idea that kids engage in behavior because it is what they know. They need to learn alternative patterns of behavior to help them become more successful. Restorative Practices is focused on making things right. I have previously thought of it as a post-behavior intervention, and this book showed me how it can be applied prior to escalation of behavior.  I had also reasoned that putting a victim and a perpetrator together in a room might be cruel. I have seen kids who have been brutalized and cannot imagine making them face their abuser. If the victim is willing and prepared, I can see how this approach could facilitate healing. Unfortunately, such meetings require lots of pre-conference work with the parties, a willingness to participate, and highly skilled facilitators. The average teacher is not prepared to do this role.

I appreciated the idea that students need to develop empathy through guidance and learn skills. The authors identified four questions that students could reflect on to develop these skills:

1. Did you ask for help today when you needed it? 
2. Did you offer help to another when you recognized that he or she needed it?
3. Did you accept help when it was offered to you?
4. If you declined help, did you do so politely?              p. 44

Soft skills are often seen as critical and often lacking in young people today. Helping skills are one such group of skills that students need to work.

They highlight the importance of class meetings. These are not merely activities after a problem, they are proactive, community-building actions that help to circumvent problems. They are opportunities to share ideas, thoughts, joys and sorrows. They are opportunities to remind students about upcoming events and appropriate. They are opportunities to review before a test or debrief study skills afterwards. When they are used throughout the year for these varied purposes, students are not adverse to participating and do not see the class meeting as "someone(s) did something wrong."

Throughout the text there are images of students holding signs like, "I wouldn't make it anywhere else," (p. 16) and "I own my mistakes" (p. 97). These are inspiring comments that showcase trust and personal responsibility. They also have many sentence starters for discussions which would be useful for difficult conversations. Overall a book I know I will read again. Learning about how to correct the course before it is woefully off target is an admirable activity that I know I would improve from.

peer tutoring and the Gifted

When our district started its full day kindergarten program I went to the public sessions. My daughter was not going to eligible for the program for another year yet, but would ultimately attend kindergarten so I was interested. I asked about how they were going to keep my daughter learning all day- I was resigned to her being bored and developing her coloring skills for half a day, but an entire day seemed too much. I was informed of the options the teachers could use for advanced students:

• More challenging work could be sent home- my five year old did not need her learning after school but in school. If I wanted to be her teacher, I am perfectly capable of homeschooling if that is the goal.
• She could help the other students when she finished, after all the best way to learn something is to teach it- who trained her in teaching? Didn’t she deserve to learn new things, too?
• There would be plenty of learning for her to do. Kindergarten is far more advanced than it used to be- true, but she had mastered even these raised standards before kindergarten started.

There was no mention of sending high achieving students to higher level classes or differentiating to individualize her instruction. For a decent school district, their answers seemed woefully lacking.

Catherine Little addresses the concern about peer tutoring or having fast finishers help slow-goers in her article, “PeerTutoring and Gifted Learners- Applying a Critical Thinking Lens.”  She poses three questions for peer tutoring:

• What is the intended purpose of peer tutoring- not just for the tutee, but for the tutor?
• How will you assess progress toward that goal?
• How do we guide students to achieve them?

As Ms. Little and my district superintendent pointed out there is an adage that teaching others is the best way to learn something well. Unfortunately, this is an unproven adage. Helping out others after you finished or being the recipient of “ask 3 then me” all class will slow down progress so the child is not sitting with nothing to do. There might be empathy goals to achieve. If one of these three purposes is the goal then how do you assess it? My daughter would get increasing frustrated with being asked to help others to pass or being constantly interrupted in her work by others. While she shows tremendous empathy for her brother whose ASD presents huge struggles in the social realm, she wanted her school time to be about, well, her. Never was there any measure of her success in any of these areas. Admittedly how would you measure it? She showed kindness during the interaction- she did before, that's why her teachers were so eager to suggest it. She refrained from empathy lacking comments- she did, in school, but when she came home, I would hear about it.

I know the success of Peer Tutoring as an instructional tool. The problem, as Ms. Little points out, is that successful peer tutoring programs involve training of the tutor and clear expectations for both parts of the dyad. Further, they work best with participants who choose to be involved- not those mandated to participate.

If we want to have our schools meet our children’s potential- a goal for many schools and teachers- we need to figure out how to deal with these fast finishers. Merely asking them to help out cannot be the sole answer. Perhaps give them more challenging assignments- not more work, different work. Perhaps have them work on an independent project of interest when they finish.  Perhaps they could read. If they want to help out, let them, but don't demand it of them.

Best Practice

As I was teaching this spring Steven Zemelman, Harvey Daniels, and Arthur Hyde's book, Best Practice: Bring Standards to Life in America's Classrooms, Fourth Edition, was given to me. Its been a crazy busy first part of summer, so I only just now finished it. It was published in 2012, shortly after the release of the Common Core Standards and reflects that time- disillusionment with No Child Left Behind and excitement about the advent of the Common Core. Six years later  we have seen progress continues to stagnate under new standards and people left scratching their heads about how to help American children be more successful in school.

Best Practice urges the use of evidence proven strategies and discipline based consensus about how to achieve success. The general message is that kids need to read and write more and engage in more inquiry and experiential opportunities to better grasp the curriculum. This book had much more of a focus on elementary and middle school programs. Only two examples address high school experiences. This is potentially due to the lack of these ideas being utilized effectively at the secondary level in spite people saying they are the goal.

Best practice begins with the basic principles:

• student centered classrooms
• authentic learning opportunities featuring experiences that allow them to construct ideas and systems
• holistic rather than part to whole
• challenging curriculum
• learning comes from cognitive experiences- based on prior knowledge, emphasizes the role of factual knowledge and conceptual frameworks, full of self-monitoring
• developmentally appropriate and self-reflection
• socially based- friendly and supportive, safe, collaborative, democratic
• multiple forms of expression to engage in ideas

Then they go on to explain the seven structures of teaching that support the principles-

• gradual release of responsibility
• classroom workshop
• strategic thinking
• collaborative activities
• integrative units
• representing to learn
• formative-reflective assessment.

I can find little argument with the ideas except that they are often out of step with how we approach much of our educational program- discrete subjects with a mountain of curriculum to wade through, little collaborative planning time and respect for teachers who want to preserve their silos. As the authors go through the chapters on reading, writing, math, science and social studies, these challenges become apparent. We might be able to appreciate the beauty of the examples provided, but find it nearly impossible to figure out how to implement it in our realities. The best advice, although not written in the text is to go slow and incorporate pieces that work for you and then move forward as you become more comfortable.

The authors support conferencing with students around reading and writing. Many of my peers pondered how to implement this when they had not read the book or student's paper. (After all, my son glories in stories of his peers who wrote about imaginary books or who watched movies in lieu of reading and wrote reports based on the film.) They offer these three questions:

1. What are you working on?
2. How is it going?
3. What do you plan to do next? or How can I help you right now? P. 49

These are springboard questions that stimulate a conversation that should only take about five minutes per child.

I also really enjoyed the description the authors used of an "emphasis on metacognition, taking responsibility for running your own brain" (p. 50). It gives the focus to kids. This past year I worked out a behavior self-monitoring sheet for the kids I had in one class. They had to give themselves a daily rating of how they did- accomplished the task for the day and behaved appropriately. There was a description of what it looked like to behave appropriately to help them gauge their day. I looked over their ratings every day and sometimes added comments about how the student rated himself. Behavior improved in the room. Students were more able to identify what they needed to do and how to do better.

From a reading point of view, they stated the four things children need to do in order to improve their reading:

• read a lot
• access to books they can read
• to learn to read fluently
• and to develop thoughtful literacy (p. 266).

I notice an absence of rigor, grade-level appropriate, or challenging when describing what kids should be reading. This movement of the Common Core is not what they suggest makes for better readers- reading motivating, accessible material does. The message applies to writing- write a lot about things they care about so they can do it easily (both from a graphomotor and text perspective) and be thoughtful about their writing. These are things we can do in every classroom- no need for long papers- a paragraph will do, if it is done everyday in every class.

We can help our children achieve new heights- but we need to look at things differently and we need to engage them in meaningful work.

Uniquely Human

I just finished listening to Barry Prizant's book, Uniquely Human: A Different Way of Seeing Autism. Although I have read multiple articles and receive his newsletter from his SCERTS program, it is my first book by him that I have read. Again I am awed by how challenging it is to deeply read an audiobook. I feel that it is important to engage in this exercise periodically because it creates an understanding with students who use audiobooks as a compensatory tool. If they multitask, as I frequently do when listening, it is not high quality information learning.

Dr. Prizant weaves his years of experience through his book as anecdotes to support his ideas rather than listing research article after article. This makes the book very readable. 

His primary assertion is that there are no "autistic" behaviors, merely human behaviors that are engaged in with an intensity or beyond an expected time. When my son bounced at the arrival of his birthday guests, he was engaging in behavior typical of a toddler, not a middle schooler. When a child rocks to calm himself, he is doing what many do, but perhaps more vigorously or more publically than we might. When a child engages in self-injurious behavior (SIB) because he is overwhelmed, he is aggressively combating the overstimulation by blocking it out the only way he knows how- SIB. We need to modify the environment to reduce the stress rather than try to target the SIB for extinction.

He reminds us that people on the spectrum may experience past events almost the ways a person with PTSD might- full of emotion and experience. A bad experience once, can lead to extreme anxiety about that situation again. That anxiety can lead to outbursts that are seemingly "out of no where" until some careful and thorough detective work reveals the underlying cause. Then, just like a person with PTSD, we cannot eliminate the brain's instinctive response, but we can slowly buffer the traumatic experience with more positive experiences and self-talk. 

He reminds us that each person is developing throughout their life. There is no age beyond which a skill cannot develop. We should not be looking at an average development curve, but an individual one and celebrate the gains each individual makes.

His target audience is caregivers. He is offering a comforting viewpoint that their children are "normal" but on a different trajectory that some others. He recommends finding support howsoever it helps- books, therapy groups, parents of people with autism groups, whatever works for each individual. His book is also for professionals. It urges them to find compassion and look at the strengths of each individual rather than the deficits. He reminds them to understand the monumental task a caregiver has and to remember that they are doing the best they can in that moment. My son had a 1:1 aide with him throughout his schooling. He came home and there I was without that support. There were times when he was young when he had to come to the bathroom with me because I could not trust him with his little sister while I took two minutes out. Teachers recognize that the children in their care go home to their parents at night, during vacations, and the summer. They relish their time away from their jobs. Parents do not have the luxury. Even when their child is at school, they are on edge about how their child is doing and will they get a phone call about some issue. They are in for the long haul. Sometimes their stress says they cannot be the best they would like to be.

The last chapter in the book is a FAQ section. It provides sensible, down to earth answers to some of the most common questions that Dr. Barry is asked.  A nice way to wrap up the text. I would highly recommend this text.

Tips for a summer of play

When my children were in elementary school, I heard an administrator say that gifted kids and kids with disabilities were the same, and our school met the needs of all children. I could not even think of where to begin to address this statement. Yes, gifted is officially a component of special education, but in New York, like many other states I suspect, there is a special certification for special education but only an endorsement for gifted. There is a vast array of assessment, reporting and service delivery requirements for special ed, but none for gifted. The common catch-all term- differentiation- that we use to explain how we meet the needs of diverse students with the classroom does not eliminate the need for special education placements, but gifted placements are, in many places unheard of. All that being said, both groups do share the need for adjustments to be made to the curriculum  to truly benefit from school. Differentiation does meet the needs of many students within the classroom.

When I picked up Parenting for High Potential this month, June, I read an article that highlighted some other commonalities between the two groups in their article by Leigh Ann Fish and Patti Ensel Bailie, "Getting Gifted Kids Outdoors: Tips for a Summer of Play." We have lots of evidence that a lack of unstructured and outdoor play produces a range of potentially negative outcomes from childhood obesity, increased diagnoses  of ADHD, reduced empathy and diminished creativity. Benefits of having kids put down their devices and going out into the world to play include:

• improved social skills- it provides opportunities to be alone, as well advancing "interactions with others and build[ing] resilience in social situations by allowing children to practice social skills" (p.6).
• enhanced emotional well-being- can offer a break from the anxiety of trying to be perfect, allowing children to calm down and relax as well as persevere to overcome obstacles.
• More risk-taking, resilience and grit- when tasks are too easy, kids cannot develop resiliency. Outside they can push physical limits and repeatedly try something until they get it.
• better physical health- gifted children (and many with disabilities) are "asynchronous in their development, their intellect may outpace their physical maturity, leasing them to struggle with fine and gross motor abilities" (p. 6). Many with disabilities struggle with physical development as well. Getting outdoors can improve eating and sleeping schedules as well as eye health and immune systems. This is true for all kids!
• Greater curiosity , creativity and imagination- outdoor environments provide a variety of challenges that require thoughtful decision-making. 
• reduction in ADHD symptoms- for children with overexcitabilities pent up energies can be released in safe ways. Regular aerobic activity can help children with ADHD better control their behavior.

All of these things apply to kids in general, not just gifted ones. Stereotypical gifted kids who are bookworms or computer geeks, are not alone in spending hours on devices. This phenomena is epidemic in our youth who can barely leave their phones for a few moments. we need to get them to leave their tech and do something.

What to do if your kid doesn't want to go outside- and many don't. Fortnite is far more attractive  for many kids than a playground. Some of the author's suggestions include getting out there yourself. I would add that we need to model all the behavior we want our kids to engage in. We need to put down our devices and interact with nature and our kids. If we have our nose in our cell phone, so will they. If we express curiosity about what type of bird, flower or tree that is, our kids are more likely to similarly wonder and investigate. If we read trail markers, our kids will get into the habit of doing so as well. Get kids dressed for the activity- boots, hats, waders are important. Many kids suffer with sensory sensitivities- wet clothes may be problem- have spare dry ones,  gloves may insulate kids from touching things that are overwhelmingly slimy or scratchy. Incorporate tech- take pictures, geocache, identify species. You can even set a time limit. This week you need to go out for at least 5 minutes before lunch and 5 minutes before dinner. Next week we can increase the time. Withhold those devices. My favorite idea was the parent who changed the wifi password every day and the child had to earn it. Apps can limit device time- but again, be wary of your modeling.

These are such genuinely great ideas for all kids. send them out to play. It will be good for them.