Last week I taught a Sunday School class of 16 and 17-year olds. The night before they attended Mormon Prom. My wife thinks that piece of evidence is important. There were five students, three boys and two girls. The topic was not difficult or deep but the questions required thinking. The girls were offended at the end of class while the boys enjoyed it.
I interrupted the girls on a constant basis with questions as they shared covert messages with each other while the boys did not engage in such actions. The girls complained that the teacher went too far with the lesson and brought in material that was interesting but not applicable while the boys’ favorite part was the applicability of the outside material they had never heard. (I explained how Hebrew shepherds tend their flocks by night, gather them in the morning, and how they leave their block behind the retrieve a lost sheep. All of it is a metaphor to home/visiting teaching, fellowshipping, and the temple.)
Neither male nor female were articulate in their answers. There was no original thought nor did they exhibit the ability to take the lesson material and draw inferences. The utter stupor of thought was fascinating.
Today I taught five students, 11 and 12-year olds, three girls and two boys. The topic was deeper and required greater thought. The girls’ ability to connect difficult metaphors was exciting. The boys researched questions and offered the results of their research on their volition. Two of the girls found difficulty in keeping quiet when the attention of the teacher was on another student, but they were quick to return to the text and participate.
The greatest insights of the young class were profound. The outside material brought in by the instructor was broad and appreciated. Each child found a different insight. The instructor covered less reading material than with the older class (5 scriptures to 20+), however, the depth of conversation and breadth of material dwarfed the hormone-laden teenagers. (The Good Samaritan was the topic and the metaphors of – Adam was the man, Jerusalem was heaven and Jericho was the earth. They connected such things as the lawyers memorizing the law (scripture) but not knowing the law, to name a few.)
I threw in that subjective notion to bias your thoughts intentionally.
From empirical evidence of over thirty years of teaching both age groups, the difference between the two classes has little to do with hormones. It has more to do with environmental conditioning. The older group has had five more years of mediocre teachers and busy parents who provide little challenge for their fertile minds.
When a teenage is not give high expectations, they live up to those expectations in both the classroom and the home. The greater we challenge our youth the greater they produce.
We’ve examined here the inability of present-day teaching to challenge the intellect of our youth. As a young adult preparing to become a husband and father, what can I do to challenge them? What does it take to reverse the tide of shallow thinking that is so pervasive in groups of young people?
You can become a master teacher! He who asks the questions is in control of the space he shares with others. You cannot, however, control people. Half the answer is found within a good question. Be careful not to put expectations upon other’s behaviors. You can only change and control yourself. Herein lies most of our frustration: we expect others to act in a way we want them to. When you become truly interesTED in other people, they will want to be around you. By holding them accountable for what they want, they are teachable. The distance traveled in this scenario takes time to master.
Agree in part. There is research out there in the education world regarding teens’ brains during adolescence and how the brain sort of shuts down. That being said (I don’t totally prescribe to it) I agree with the author re: environment playing a role. My oldest sons are often bored with lessons that don’t go deeper, because, I feel, in our home we often have meaningful discussions. I have also observed students with a strong sense of self (that is a whole different discussion) are more willing to engage in those more meaningful conversations.
There is a difference between shutting down and being a male. Males have a portion of their brain that is empty. It’s called the nothing box (see video by Mark Gungor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BxckAMaTDc ). We go into it when we are stressed or in need of vegging. The post is referencing the latter part of your comment, teenagers who are not conditioned to questioning the accepted and critical thinking. They don’t develop the ability to think differently. In homes where deep discussions are the norm, when these children mature, they enjoy conversations of difference, because they’ve been conditioned that understanding is more important than agreement.