Curriculum

Teenager Emotions – Some Intriguing Research

/ Dave Eberwein / Leave a comment

Being a teenager is difficult work — both for the teenager and those who surround them. Mixed within this tumultuous life event are their emotions — those effervescent expulsions that can sometimes leave us perplexed as to what just happened. Brain research may have a possible explanation.

Recent research points to the developing teenage brain and its inexperience at recognizing multiple emotions simultaneously as a possible reason for this sometimes bewildering display of fireworks. Learning and the Brain (one of my favourite sites to go looking for neat stuff related to learning) recently posted a blog by Andrew Watson which highlighted this fascinating research on teenager emotions.

Teenager Emotions Can Feel Like a Roller Coaster at Times

At the heart of the study is an analysis of why teenagers are so frustrating at times, especially when they are experiencing multiple emotions simultaneously.

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I Forget Stuff – I Must Be Brilliant

/ Dave Eberwein / Leave a comment

Do you ever stand up to go somewhere, walk over and then wonder why you’re there? Happens to me all the time — wait, that doesn’t sound very reassuring. It happens to me some times.

My solution?

Often walking back to where I came from to trigger the thought that made me leave in the first place.

Doesn’t really leave one with a strong feeling of confidence in my abilities now, does it?

But, if you’re being honest with yourself I bet it happens to you as well.

What is it about our memory that makes some stuff ‘stick’ and other stuff appear to vanish? Looking back to my 20s I can still recall studying for university exams … reading a section of a text book … then reading it again … and again … all to no avail. That page of information just wasn’t going to stay in my head.

But why?

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The Amazing Power of Music

/ Dave Eberwein / 2 Comments

Music surrounded me in childhood. My parents encouraged me to include music as part of my educational experience. I took piano lessons; played a band instrument in elementary, junior high and high school; even participated in the chorus of a high school musical (Fiddler on the Roof). In university I had a part-time job teaching in a community marching band.

Music can relax us like few other things can

I found music relaxing — finding that it somehow satisfied an area within me that wasn’t been addressed through my academic studies. I felt calmer when I listened to music, played music or taught music — a different area of my brain was being exercised. And like our sense of smell that has been proven to have an incredibly powerful linkage to our emotions, when I became involved with music I somehow felt better.

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