After reading and pondering the debate about teens lacking adult reasoning capacity, yet being held to adult consequences, what do you think this means for you as a teacher?
Knowing that the brain does not develop fully until later in teenage development, it is difficult to justify adult consequences for juveniles. As a teacher, I can help my students through processing different actions and consequences, especially for my male students. I can teach them social and emotional skills that will help them take time to process their decisions instead of jumping into something and not realizing their decisions have consequences.
Helping to teach students calm down is also a skill that would benefit teenagers. If they can train themselves to pause, they will be able to think more clearly and not get into trouble.
You are so right about helping teens to 'calm down'. They do need to learn this. It is also important that teachers be a good role model for this too :)
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