After watching the videos on brain architecture, plasticity, and understanding the impact of the environment on a child, how does this information impact you as a teacher?
Even though my students have surpassed the initial and most influential periods of brain development, their brains have fully yet to come into their own; they still have a lot of growing to do. The information that they confront on a daily basis, both in and out of my classroom, will impact the future shape of their brains, and thus their minds. Even if they don't remember who Jefferson Davis was, or the interpretations of all of the Constitutional Amendments, if I deliver the lesson in a memorable way, it will influence the way they think and feel in the future, even if only slightly.
In learning about elasticity, I find that I must take greater caution in planning my lessons so that they are suitable to their maturity, but also help further their development. Content must be appropriate, not too intense or adult, but it should definitely push what they had previously thought or what they hadn't thought about a particular subject. Content should stimulate, though not necessarily shock, which is easy to do in talking about history; most of the lessons that history yields are shadowy. But if too obscure, it may skew students' perceptions in unintended ways.
