The Main Idea

• The teen brain is still being shaped and is not best served by sitting and occasionally dozing in the classroom. To give their brains regular workouts we need to challenge them and allow them to experiment and take risks as they learn from experience. Throughout time, until recently, teens have been apprentices working alongside experienced older people from whom they learned skills and adult social behavior. Some tribes still send young men off to fend for themselves in the bush. Even though we know it’s natural for teens to learn from experience, we make them sit quietly in class and do what the teacher tells them. We need to wean teens from dependency to help them become self-motivated learners equipped with confidence and judgement so they can be useful to society.

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