NATURE’S WORK

 

The last posting of this blog left the reader with the concern about how the natural development of the mind affects young people.  It did this after introducing the field of study that looks at adolescence from the physical side of brain development.  The posting relied, along with this one, on an article by Sarah-Jayne Blakemore.[1] 

She writes:  “Given the fact that we know that social brain regions continue to develop, both in terms of structure and function, during adolescence, we were interested in how social cognitive behavior changes in adolescence.”[2]  The first revelations found the consequence of this development was with young people. 

That is, when confronted with difficult problems or tasks, adolescents were disposed to seek the help of others – not a trait observed in younger children.  This finding was contrary to what had been taken to be the case.  The belief was that children sought help.  Such a finding, to the contrary, motivated study into related concerns such as risk taking and how peers influence young people in their decision-making.

          Another area of interest is how genetic makeups influence brain development during those teen years.  This research stretches into maladies such as schizophrenia mentioned in the last posting.  Also, studies of excessive paranoia have been conducted.  In those efforts, such imaging tools as fMRIs have been useful.  More specifically, ways to measure blood flow have been relied upon because the telling fact is that neurons, to be active, need more energy and that is provided by blood.  Or stated succinctly, when commenting on brain activity, what one is talking about is blood flowing to and in the brain.

          Blakemore writes:

 

I think the area of adolescent brain development is one of the areas in cognitive neuroscience where actually brain imaging has completely revolutionized what we know. … We just didn’t know until 10 or 15 [today 20 or 25] years ago that the brain undergoes such dramatic development and even reorganization during the period of adolescence starting at puberty and continuing right throughout adolescence. … [I]t has revolutionized how we understand teenagers.[3]

 

And one very far-reaching finding is that no evidence – contrary to previous common belief – exists that the brain is fixed in a person’s early childhood.  This was considered doctrine, but due to imaging studies, it is now considered totally wrong.  Today, it is believed that significant change takes place throughout adolescent years and continues into a person’s 20s and 30s. 

And this change doesn’t end there.  The brain’s plasticity – that’s its baseline state of the brain – continues to change.  And as such, that fact affects intervention and educational efforts directed to help teenagers.  But there is one challenging fact related to this promising development.

Unfortunately, such analysis calls for the use of scanning techniques and they are expensive and long-lasting protocols.  These treatments, to be effective, are large-scale studies that one can consider to be longitudinal in that they last a number of years.  Blakemore suggests not longitudinal studies but cross-sectional ones in which comparisons among different teenagers, situated with different adults, can be conducted.

Blakemore opines:

 

It would be ideal if you could scan a very large number of teenagers every couple of years as they go into adulthood.  The icing on the cake would be to scan a sufficient number of individuals so that you track people who, for example, develop schizophrenia, and go back and look at their brain imaging data from when they were a teenager, and look at how it differs from teenagers who don’t develop schizophrenia. … [They] really need to be doing it [i.e., this type of analysis] for 20 years.[4]

 

And with that bit of insight, Blakemore ends with a hopeful observation.  This type of research is new – as of the publishing of her article ten years ago – and promises to provide meaningful insights into various fields of behavior and development, such as psychiatric disorder and psychological disorder, where the lack of knowledge is significant.

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[1] Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, “The Adolescent Brain” in Thinking:  The New Science of Decision-Making, Problem-Solving, and Prediction, edited by John Brockman (New York, NY:  Harper Perennial, 2013), 115-131.

[2] Ibid., 121.

[3] Ibid., 128.

[4] Ibid., 130-131.

THE NATURE SIDE

 

This blogger has given immaturity quite a bit of emphasis in this blog and in his book, From Immaturity to Polarized Politics.[1]  His approach has primarily been from a social perspective – the nurturing part.  But there is another approach, the physical perspective – the nature part.  Ten years ago, an edited book of readings, Thinking, was published – a set of articles edited by John Brockman.  One of the articles, “The Adolescent Brain,” was written by Sarah-Jayne Blakemore with assistance from Simon Baron-Cohen.[2]  A review of its offering would be helpful to the efforts of this blog.

          That is to share with readers an approach to civics education and any information, findings, data, theorizing, or even arguments that shed light on how adolescents think is useful in applying or criticizing what this blog promotes.  This citied article adds to the sources this blog has cited in the past.  It focuses on the physical side of the analysis of why young people relate to the social aspects of civics as they actually or might be able to do. 

This would be particularly important if one were to adopt a liberated federalist view – what this blog promotes – in guiding the content and instructional processes a teacher employs in teaching civic lessons.  The reason is that liberated federalism is highly dependent on having students consider and even participate in “citizenry” activities that address the challenges the polity is facing – for example, poverty, racism, from a safe position, crime, and other challenges.

In a summary statement within the article, Blakemore states:

 

There’s something special about the period of adolescence, where adolescents are driven towards peers and away from their parents.  They’re driven to develop a sense of self and self-identity, and especially a sense of who they are, how they’re seen by other people, in particular their peers.  It’s time where there’s probably an increased drive to take risks, so from the evolutionary point of view to sort of move away from the relative security of your family and your parents, and take risks by discovering things for yourself in the outside world.[3]

 

A recurring challenge that is very entailed with this emerging independence is one’s political standing not only in terms of the formal government, but of the various social arrangements one encounters in the real world, as varied as it is. 

There’s the workplace, and the various service rendering locations – medical, educational, religious, etc. – and other social arrangements.  In each, a politics is practiced as one vies with and against others for resources or other wanted objects or considerations.  Politics enters any social interaction where limited desired goods and serves are distributed, and who gets them is a political decision.

The famous definition of politics is offered by Harold Lasswell:  Who gets what, when, and how. [4]  Upon reflection, as one realizes that that is what politics is, one is assisted by recognizing that it is ubiquitous.  And further, if adolescence is what the above quote says it is, then young people are constantly being exposed to new political situations which can be a constant flow of opportunities or frustrations or, more likely, a good dose of both.

In an introduction to the article, Baron-Cohen writes that from studies such as MRIs, certain findings can be stated.  For example,

 

Given that the sex steroid hormones are produced in higher quantities during this period, her [Blakemore’s] research opens up interesting questions about whether the changes in the brain are driven by the endocrine system, or by changing social experience, or an interaction of these factors.[5]

 

          And is this period important in other ways?  Blakemore cites two other issues.  One, most adult disorders or mental problems begin during a young person’s teenage years.  A prime example is the onset of schizophrenia; it is during those years when the voices in the mind begin to be “heard” by victims of that malady.  Two, after accidents, probably a by-product of risk-taking, suicide is the leading cause of death among adolescents.  Again, risk taking is a factor but probably the more pronounced reason is socially based.

          In young people’s need to separate from their parents to a certain degree, their friends and other acquaintances take on more important roles.  Consequently, being accepted by these other young people becomes very important.  “Adolescents are driven toward impressing their peers, trying to seek approval of their peers, and becoming more and more independent from their parents.”[6]  In sum, they are motivated to heighten their self-consciousness and in a time of social media, one can readily see how contemporary times have become so challenging.

          In these related studies, a good deal of these social insights is being derived not from social study, per se, but through the findings researchers are achieving from image technologies.  Various findings have been secured, such as changes to the human cortex.  Described as “more protracted development” in regard to gray matter and white matter formation – their volumes – new insights have been found.

          The article goes on to describe some of the development the brain goes through that continue into adulthood.  Such processes as synaptic pruning are described and explained as to their importance.  Part of that review introduces such chemical substances, such as myelin, and how they function in those processes.  How much of this information that civics teachers need to know and understand is questionable, but for those who want to get into it, the article offers a good introduction.

          Getting this posting back to what is more useful for the typical teacher, this quote is offered:  “Given the fact that we know that social brain regions continue to develop, both in terms of structure and function, during adolescence, we were interested in how social cognitive behavior changes adolescence.”[7]  The next posting will delve into those social consequences in more detail.

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[1] Robert Gutierrez, From Immaturity to Polarized Politics:  Obstacles in Achieving a Federated Nation (Tallahassee, FL:  Gravitas Civics Books, 2022).  See chapter 2, “The Maturation Challenge.”  Book available through Amazon and other booksellers.

[2] Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, “The Adolescent Brain” in Thinking:  The New Science of Decision-Making, Problem-Solving, and Prediction, edited by John Brockman (New York, NY:  Harper Perennial, 2013), 115-131.

[3] Ibid., 124.

[4] “Politics:  Who Gets What, When, How” Work by Lasswell,” Britannica (n.d.), accessed November 26, 2023, URL:  https://www.britannica.com/topic/Politics-Who-Gets-What-When-How.

[5] Blakemore, “The Adolescent Brain” in Thinking, 115.

[6] Ibid., 116.

[7] Ibid., 121.