The Biology of Risk Taking
There is so much complexity on how biological changes influences teenagers’ behaviour and how their brain works. It is the responsibility of the
educators to understand these changes and the resulting behaviours that leaners experience in their puberty. Studies and developments in Psychology and Neuroscience
offer some explanations and may serve as bases for provisions for realistic
expectations and effective interventions in education.
“The Biology of Risk Taking” (Lisa F. Rise, 2005) recommends some
strategies that educators can implement to promote healthy adolescent growth.
These include understanding puberty, mentorship, long-term and continuous follow-ups, prioritizing
concerns, directing "adolescent passion" towards positive
and productive ends, and collaborating with the learning community to solve
problems.
As educators, when working with adolescent learners, we should keep in
mind that, one, puberty is not the same for all teens. Some of them enters that stage earlier and
for others, a little bit later. Each of
these individuals experience different biological drives. Two, they are not adults. We should respect how they behave and think
and adjust our expectations to provide them more effective interventions to
promote healthy adulthood.
Growth Mindset
Carol Dweck, author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (2006) asserts
that individuals can be categorized into their attitude towards their ability
to be successful. Some people believe that
their success is a product of their hardwork and learning, while others
perceive their talents and intelligence as inherent traits. Respectively, these are “growth” and “fixed”
theories of intelligence as defined by Dweck in her book.
Individuals with Growth mindset believe that intelligence can be
developed and can lead to a desire to learn and therefore they are open to challenges,
persevere despite of hindrances, see effort as essential to mastery, learn from
criticism, and are inspired by the other people’s success. On the other hand, “fixed”
individuals believes intelligence is static.
Fixed mindset leads to desire to look smart and therefore a tendency to avoid
challenges, yield to obstacles, see effort as fruitless, ignore useful feedback,
and threatened by others’ success.
In the classroom, developing the growth mindset can be realized by
recognizing the “adolescent passion” and convert their thrill-seeking behavior
into productive ends; praising “effort” more than “intelligence” and encouraging
students to learn from mistakes and
failures. In Mathematics, the development
of growth mindset in students will reduce, if not eliminate, the anxiety and
fear, students generally have for the subject.
Finally, I go for the recommendations of Eduardo Bricero, “listen to
your (our) “fixed” mindset. If you (we)
hear, I can’t do it, you (we) add the word “yet”.
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