Julie Smith

The Adolescent Award Brain Julie Smith

If you teach in a school with difficult students, this book is for you. Are they snarky? Do they try to negotiate with you or simply refuse when you ask them to do the simplest things? Do you feel disrespected and unappreciated? If you answered yes to any and all of these questions, you need to read this! It turns out that new brain research shows that adolescents are simply wired way differently than adults. Because various parts of their brain have not yet come into full maturity, they make way different choices than they might in ten or so years. Motivated by thrills, adventure, rewards and fun, they could really care less about threats of punishment. We teachers can put this to our advantage to have fun, engaging, interesting classrooms even in the most challenging of circumstances. Ms. Smith also deals with topics such as bullying and violence in the classroom; even what to do if you are threatened. This book could be considered to be a definitive guide for how to teach in the most challenging classrooms anywhere!