 Hi, my name is Tracy Takahama Espinoza and this is a video on developing brains and helping kids make good decisions in life The focus here is really to look at that new information about the developing brain We know a lot more about what happens during gestation to before the kid is even born what happens in early life experiences and all of these different things that Contribute to the ability to make good decisions and we also know a whole lot about what's going on when kids Don't make good decisions. We all have experienced that We know what's like when crazy teenager jumps in a car after drinking and and that's the end of it And so these bad decisions, where do they come from? And so we know there's a lot of roots in habituating behavior over time So we want to go through that we also wanted to spell a lot of the crazy myths that are out there about how Brains develop so we want to get some clarity there about you know, you're born with perfectly functioning frontal lobes Okay, what's missing are those? rehearsals of neural networks related to good decision-making and to choice and so we'll talk about How that works and what it is that we can do as teachers to contribute to that, okay? So how can we help kids practice better decision-making mechanisms so that they don't have These terrible outcomes that might result if they don't do that and so as we go through a handful of these big ideas I really love it if you could Chat down anything that might be new or interesting to you and let me know so that when we focus on The day when we meet we can actually go deeper into those particular concepts So here's some big ideas to frame this discussion Your brain adapts to what it does most So we're gonna sort of pull that apart when we're together, but basically Habituation plays a huge role in decision-making so how you get used to making decisions makes an impact So we're gonna talk about how early choices about how to make good decisions is really important We're also going to talk about this big idea that all new learning passes through the filter of prior experience So everything new that you're gonna do has been in is going to be influenced by all the things that have already happened to you So let's just say you have this amazing fourth grade math teacher who is just gonna you know rock your world But you just had such a lousy experience in third grade That you're terrified and so you can't help but associate your interaction with that teacher with your past And so we're gonna talk about how teachers can help kids You know sort of come to grips with their past and also leverage what they already know But not be hostage to some of those Pre-conceived ideas about situations. It's also important to understand that what you know Influences what you can know This is why we say the more things that you know The greater amount of things you can learn in the future because this is basically neural plasticity, right? The more connections you've made the more potential connections you can make in the future So we're gonna explain why that's you know physically what's going on in your brain But also what that means conceptually in classes and how giving kids rich and varied experiences and multiple Visions of the same idea and concept is really fantastic for their future learning as well And also this idea that what you know changes How you know Something new and so this has to do with your own life And as it goes on and so how you actually approach things today might be different from what you do Next month or in five years or in ten years and so There's a constant dynamic change that occurs we call this neuro constructivism so your brain is sort of continually building itself, but it's always Changing slightly every single experience is sort of changing these neural networks So we'll talk a little bit about how that impacts our craft And this art of teaching that we have and then we're going to leave with this really big idea about We don't say nature versus nurture anymore. We basically say Nature, you know, you're born with your genes Via nurture you're definitely influenced by the experiences you have in the world including things that happen in school But there's this huge piece that has come out of resiliency studies that tells us that you also have free will You get to choose So you get to decide a lot of things It might be in your nature You have a tendency to have a short fuse and a bad temper temper and you have a bully in the class So nature and nurture have combined to sort of set you up for for free fall here But the really cool thing is you get to decide how you're going to react to that situation You can tell a kid, you know, I know you're angry labeling it right because Tommy took your ball from you Okay cause and effect We label it, but then we also allow them to understand. I can understand You know that emotion inside of you. I can I can sense that you're angry. Okay now What are you gonna do about it? So your feelings are not the same as your emotions, which is kind of crazy right emotions are of the body It's the chemicals that get released and the feeling is your decision about what to do about that So we're going to talk a little bit about how to help kids understand that and that they are in more control And they think they are we're gonna base a lot of this information on a study That looks at adolescence from being from eight years old all the way to 24 crazy, right? But it's a longer-term study that's being undertaken at undertaken right now It's just adolescent brain and cognitive development study and with the goal of trying to understand What tips kids what makes some kids fall into the decision of taking drugs and others not What tips kids and they're hanging with the wrong crowd to quote unquote what tips kids Towards good or bad behaviors and so looking at this over time What kinds of influences have heavier weight than others and so I'll be sharing some of that information with you We'll also talk about a lot of these myths around adolescence. I'm you know can't learn anything past adolescence It's kind of like all downhill from there. No We'll get rid of those myths and we'll talk about why As we said before all new learning passes through the filter prior experience Well, the older you are the more experiences you have the more things are gonna pass through that filter there, right? So you can always learn and you can actually learn more efficiently But we have to help kids get away from that idea that they're limited by that So we'll look at choices every day decisions So you know what people either who they hang out with or when they do their homework And we're gonna look at this in the context of understanding how your brain It takes a lot of energy to do stuff And so your brain is always trying to conserve energy and so how does it save energy by just sort of doing the easiest thing? So we'll talk about how to get around that Look at different types of Decision-making processes that your brain goes through at a metacognitive little level And then we're going to talk about some real big tools that you can integrate into your classroom that would help kids Make small decisions so they are better off making those bigger decisions So if you have ideas or thoughts about this before we meet Please send me an email so that I can make sure that I incorporate them into our session when we meet together And looking forward to it. Thanks