This year’s theme for Youth Communication’s Summer Writing Workshop is identity, so I’ve been working on tailoring my workshop material around that topic. In discussing adolescence, for example, I won’t be focusing on the teen brain. Instead, I want to emphasize what child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr. Ruth Talbot has Read more…
I’ve been trying to develop a workshop on the teen brain for quite some time now, but I had some trouble finding an engaging way of presenting all the research I’d collected on adolescent brain growth and its effects on teen behavior and learning. Mind you, I wasn’t seeking to present that much information in so much detail. I simply want participants to be aware that beginning in adolescence, and continuing into their early twenties, their brains undergo a second growth spurt (comparable in significance to brain development in the first two years of life), which will affect their mood, behavior, and ability to learn. This period of growth is accompanied by pruning and myelination (for greater processing speed and efficiency), and all this happens largely in a back-to-front fashion, meaning that the prefrontal cortex, or the rational, executive center of the brain, is the last to mature. This leaves young people more reliant on the amygdala, or the emotional and reactive center of the brain. Because the brain operates as a “use it or lose it” system, where the skills that are most used are strongly reinforced, this period of brain development is a great opportunity to learn new things and focus on what is most important. (Are your eyes glazed over yet?)
I’d considered showing some clips of a documentary that included both scientific views and more personal perspectives from teenagers, parents, and teachers, followed by some sort of role play where participants could offer solutions to some of the problems posed in the program (lack of sleep, moodiness, etc.), but I just didn’t feel like I could make the session dynamic enough. It was only recently that I finally figured out a “hook” engaging enough for teenagers: Zits comics. (more…)
Last night I met with Barry Chaffkin from Fostering Change for Children, which started the Adoptment program that runs at NAC. I mentioned to him how I found the mentors to be such an integral element to the success of my workshops, and he said that that should be something Read more…
Someone recommended I read a paper by Profs. Daphna Oyserman and Mesmin Destin on a social psychological framework called Identity-Based Motivation (IBM). The model offers not only an explanation for poor educational outcomes among certain populations (especially for low-income black and Hispanic boys), but it also offers a modest but proven method for closing the gap between students’ desire to do well and actual academic attainment. (more…)
Let’s talk about pilot programs! As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’m piloting bits of my Coming of Age program at New Alternatives for Children (NAC). I’m especially excited about the upcoming workshop, which will allow participants to take what we discussed in our last meeting—coming of age rituals—and synthesize it for themselves by designing rites of passage that resonate with their personal definitions of adulthood. As opposed to the last session, where I needed to hit several conceptual points in a presentation and discussion, this is the part of the program where I have no agenda and no expectations. I’m not familiar with this group, but even the facilitator who knows them well is curious to see what the youths come up with. After the presentations, we will have everyone fill out another survey that will hopefully give us a measure the impact of the workshop and allow them to evaluate my role as an educator.
The group facilitator and I debated whether or not we should have participants fill out post-workshop evaluations so soon. (more…)
Yesterday I debuted my Rites of Passage workshop at New Alternatives for Children (NAC). I expected a lot of awkward silence, but there were so many talkative and knowledgeable people in the room, and many of their questions and comments pushed me in exactly the right direction. I have a lot to process, but I’ll offer some initial observations here: (more…)
I’ve been debating whether or not it’s a good idea to have students keep a food journal. It’s really quite a chore to keep track of everything one consumes on a daily basis, it might detract from the enjoyment of meals, and as with any sort of diary, it could feel like an invasion of privacy. Nevertheless, I think there are some benefits to the exercise. (more…)
I mentioned wanting to teach a program on food and nutrition that gives participants the tools to develop healthful (and joyful) eating habits on their own, rather than one that mandates a strict regimen. This does not mean ignoring others’ recommendations and encouraging everyone to eat willy-nilly. To the contrary, this means doing the work of comparing different dietary guidelines and evaluating them. One way of going about this is by looking at graphic nutrition guides such as food pyramids. (more…)
Part of my fascination with the chicken nugget issue is that it raises the question not only of what we feed our kids, but who decides what they eat in the first place. The story of Stacey Irvine, the seventeen year-old who collapsed after a steady diet of almost nothing but chicken nuggets since the age of two, is an extreme case of what could happen if we let kids set diets entirely for themselves. In her own defense, Stacey’s mother said that her daughter presented problems that her other two children never did with respect to their eating habits. They even happily consume plenty of fruits and vegetables. Stacey, however, shunned all foods to the extent that for her mother it was a relief when she discovered her daughter’s penchant for chicken nuggets.This got me wondering just how persistent adults should be in ensuring that kids get a healthful and varied diet. (more…)
It’s been awhile. In my time away from the blog I began developing a food a nutrition program. Let me explain. It all started with a weird news story someone sent me about a seventeen-year old British girl who collapsed after a steady diet of chicken nuggets. (Indeed, she had eaten almost nothing but nuggets for the last fifteen years, with nary a fruit or vegetable in the mix.) The story led me to a video of chef Jamie Oliver attempting to educate a group of young kids on the poor nutritional value of chicken nuggets. The effort was featured on Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, a show with the ambitious mission of changing the way Americans eat in a two-step process. First, Oliver educates the American public on the dangers of processed food. And second, he teaches parents, teens, and even cafeteria workers how to cook healthful meals from scratch.
You may have already seen the clip below, since it’s gotten quite a number of plays on YouTube. Oliver introduces the segment by saying how he’s designed this brilliant experiment that has never failed him in the UK. Basically, he shows how chicken nuggets are often made not from whole chicken breasts, but from a pink goop that results from ground up chicken carcasses. This goop is then pushed through a sieve to separate all the hard bits out, and then a bunch of additives are then mixed into the “batter.” This mixture is then formed into little patties, which can be breaded and fried. Seeing the process firsthand is usually enough to put people off nuggets forever. Well, as you’ll see below, the experiment is an utter failure with the American kids. After eewing and yucking their way through the demonstration, after the nuggets are all fried up, they are still eager to eat them.
If we seek to change people’s eating habits for the better, it’s important to ask why the experiment fails. (more…)