The teen brain is a funny place to live, with unique challenges and threats. There have been some excellent articles and resources produced recently on the subject – useful for students, teachers and parents.

Teen Brain from PBS

Carl Zimmer has a great piece on the teenage brain at Discover Magazine. Alison Gopnik has a similar piece at Wall Street Journal. Both explore the risk behaviour of teens. David Dobbs asks ‘Why do teens act the way they do?‘ at National Geographic. Richard Knox at NPR summarises ‘Teen brains are not fully connected yet,’ whereas John Cloud at Time reports on a PLOS One paper that suggests a link between more mature teen white matter and risky behaviour.

There are a lot of teen brain resources at PBS Frontline, including a full documentary. It is available (for now) on YouTube, but head over to their main site for more information and a ability to view the whole video by chapter.

I don’t normally advertise on the site, but here I’ll make an exception.

Teen brains, with their unique needs, need to be looked after to optimise learning. By paying attention to current brain research, we as educators could get more from our students and help them learn. Derek Pugh, a former BIS colleague, now works with schools, students and parents on brain-based learning workshops. He has also written a series of articles and a book: The Owner’s Guide to the Teenage Brain.

Why not visit his website, (http://www.braincompatibleeducation.com/) to read more. There are articles and eBooks on sleep, classrooms, diet, water and more.