Sarah Jayne Blakemore's 11 chaptered 'Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain' hit a soft spot for me as a 26 year old male looking back at my youngest memories I could remember. Today I recalled the vivid memories of not being able to see long distances from a very young age, around year 2. I also remember the terrifying feeling (at the time) of looking odd wearing glasses at such a young age. Strangely, I never saw any instances where people with glasses were ostracised. I may have learnt from my upbringing, that glasses may show a sign of a weakness and as such, decided to hide this 'truth' about me from everyone. I grew up without wearing glasses in public till I was in Year 9 and was blessed to be able to start wearing contacts. Until then, I spent 7 years of schooling not being able to see what's on the board, not being able to see where the ball is during sport. I still am very much a believer of "for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction," and do believe living in such blindness taught me many things. On the surface level, it taught me how to 'feel' and use intuition as well as sharpening my hearing. Deeper, it only exacerbated my habitualised, toxic desire to want to appear 'normal'. While I believe in stoicism, many people throughout my young adulthood said I seemed hard to approach. I have a poker face and often show limited expression. I may come off as someone who prefers silence over wastage of words. Looking back, I connect this learnt and habitualised trait to the glasses. I did not want to look like I couldn't see far, so I learnt how to look expressionless, to avoid any questioning. I do remember an embarrassing moment in Year 4 where the teacher pointed to a simple maths question (2+3) and didn't read out the question and I would try all my manipulative tactics I had in my books to try and get her to read the question...
Anyway, going back to this book. Blakemore's book, endorsed by the American Psychology Association, explores in far greater detail, precision, backed up neuroscience and practical experience than I could even dream of. Young people, particularly teens are largely 'sensation seekers'. In some way shape or form, appropriate to their lived experiences and subsequent morality, will want the sensation of 'feeling alive'. This feeling will dictate far more than we can imagine. It is beyond teachers, it is beyond any system. All one can do, is to be conscious of such phenomenons, to genuinely care and to keep doing their best.
I personally resonate with Chapter 3 where Blakemore explores the social wirings of young people. Cognitive dissonance is explored here, resonating with me with many of the philosophers I studied such as Freud, Foucault and Jung: Most kids know something is 'bad' such as vaping, but they still do it under the perceived threat of social ostracisation. From lived experience, social ostracisation can be minimised but never fully stopped. Such utopian thinking may be more dangerous than good (Balance is key). Perhaps a recommendation is to cultivate meaningful connections for teens to look back at under the face of such perceived social pressures. Perhaps, like many grown and matured adults, they need to experience things in order to truly understand and make decisions backed up by lived experience.
I do believe it is dangerous (as I've written before many times) to demand and tell kids what to think and what to do. I understand a large part of being a teacher in some capacity, is behaviour management. However, overly demanding and overly telling kids what to do and what to think is extremely dangerous as it makes them consider the exact opposite. 'Risky behaviour', which Blakemore explores, would become even more appealing. As she discusses in relation to the amygdala (prefrontal cortex), the rational mind shuts off and 'sensation seeking' takes over. This scales beyond just smoking a cigarette as Blakemore exemplifies. Some kids can recognise the harms in smoking for example, and will not do it even under social pressure. These same kids may perceive themselves as 'more mature' perhaps but all the same, may be attracted towards influencers who are portrayed positively yet fragmented online such as Andrew Tate. This is only an example but both social behaviours align and is well put by Blakemore in that all these behaviours are driven by young peoples' desires to 'feel alive'.
The bottom line I reflect and conclude to so far is: simplicity. Part of the adults role as someone who has lived being a child too, is the ability to synthesise it empathetically and succinctly. This must be done by the teacher authentically or else the kids will feel it. Adults will feel it. Parents will feel it. I am grateful for the humbling, eye opening, primal-drawing demands of martial arts (as well as my childhood dilemma with glasses, haha) as this intuition is forced to be cultivated. Intuition and 'feeling' is beyond just reading and thinking. It's also physical and must be tapped into the raw essence of humans, our deepest biological roots and core. Kids will look up to adults (teachers, parents) being brave. Continuously working on yourself as a teacher in any capacity will garner the respect of the kids too. Positively reward their efforts, not their innate talents (Andrew Huberman).
Simplicity can only be achieved through complexity.
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