Mind Blown by The Brain 101

Last week we welcomed back our eagles from Thanksgiving break that flew by way too quickly for both students and staff. After a short lesson on re centering ourselves and the importance of practicing mindfulness after the holiday, we hit the ground running by introducing the brain and all of its functions in our lives.

The Brain 101 included us breaking down brain development and learning about the different stages of brain maturity and what parts light up when we encounter certain situations in life. This was interesting because we discussed relevant problems in our school, fighting and sleep schedules. We talked about decision making and about how in teens brains, they react from emotions and from the ego rather than the developed frontal cortex that allows a person to rationalize options and consequences. We learned about the disturbing fact that teens don't start developing melatonin until 1 am while most adults don't produce it until 10 pm - they wanted to bring this info to the admin to advocate for later school start times- ha! We also discussed what facts, thoughts, and concepts blow our minds. We watched a viral video that showed pop culture icon, Jaden Smith, talk about mind-blowing facts that left us questioning whether or not these were in fact valid and scientifically proven. One fact that was shared that was interesting and funny was that the brain came up with the term/name for itself!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIcgyj1F9ms

This moved our discussion towards how the brain can perceive reality based on what they believe to be true and trustworthy. This lead us to bring up silly things like conspiracy theories like secret societies, celebrity vampires, alternate historical events, and different theories on the way that world secretly works. What makes us believe theories to be true? We also explored the way the mind can be altered by isolation and watched a video about how the chemicals in the brain can decline health wise and start to create new realities in order to survive situations like solitary confinement.

We broke down the 13 brain terms by doing a crossword quiz where my students were allowed to use our notes that we took during our discussion that day. We are having a bit of a challenge with attendance in my morning classes so the quiz that was administered was not allowed to be made up. Hopefully, this will help our class culture by influencing students to be here and on time, this is something my mentor leaders and I will be brainstorming this week as to how to promote, and possibly reward, attendance. Next week I will update on the strategies we come up with and if any changes have been observed on that front!

Until next week,
Ms. Castro