Teenagers: Technically, A Lot
By: Nicky De Proost
Looking back on it now, I was a positively horrendous teenager. In all honesty, I don’t think my current self would have survived teaching me. I was a smartarse and a know-it-all—no real changes there, I’m afraid—and my lovely teachers had the great honour of being in my presence at least three hours a week, minimum. I was, to put it in technical terms, a lot.
Here is the part that should be embarrassing (but mostly isn’t): I went on to get a bachelor’s degree specifically in teaching English at secondary-school level. Presumably, I believed I would be different. I would be The Cool Teacher™. I would get them. Then, I got a master’s degree and quietly retreated to university, where my students were at least legally adults and only occasionally baited me into cussing in front of an audience.
But here’s what is often forgotten after teachers are tossed in front of a group of “terrifying teens”: they are not, as commonly assumed, broken adults. They are not failed versions of the finished product, like a building with the roof half on and the electrics still being argued about. They are simply mid-construction—actively, noisily, neurologically mid-construction—and the scaffolding is supposed to be there. It is load-bearing. Bring a hard hat if you’re visiting the site.
Adolescence is one of the most significant periods of neural remodelling the human brain undergoes. The prefrontal cortex—the part responsible for consequences, planning, and the general sense that some things are a bad idea—is famously the last part of the brain to fully develop. Some of us develop it very late indeed, or sometimes not at all. Though, that might just be me. Meanwhile, the reward and social circuitry is operating at full, enthusiastic volume. This is not a design flaw. This is, if the evolutionary theorising is to be believed, entirely the point. Nature is producing architects, adventurers, explorers. And explorers, by and large, must be (and here is that technical term again)… a lot.
The thing nobody tells you—or rather, the thing that gets lost somewhere between the staff meeting and the third confiscated phone of the morning—is that this is also one of the most neuroplastic periods of a human life. The adolescent brain is genuinely, almost aggressively, open to influence. It is, for all the chaos, a remarkably good time to be their teacher. Exhausting, yes. Occasionally requiring a stiff drink, without a doubt. But the connections made during this period have an outsized chance of sticking. Teachers, whether they know it or not, are helping to draw the blueprints. This is where the real work happens.
This issue of the Think Tank turns its attention to adolescent learning and brain development: what is actually happening inside those chaotic, brilliant, occasionally deeply questionable heads, and what this means for the people trying to teach them. Our contributors approach it from complementary angles: the behavioural patterns that make teenagers recognisable across every culture and century; the neurobiological foundations being laid beneath all that construction noise; and the classroom strategies for building on them rather than around them.
We’ve also added two videos to accompany the reading: Eva Telzer, PhD, on understanding the teenage brain; and Liesbeth Elbers on navigating the teenage classroom with creativity and compassion. Between the articles and the videos, you’ll come away with something more useful than sympathy for your students—or your former teachers. You’ll come away with a framework.
After all, if I’d had teachers who understood any of this, I might have been marginally less insufferable.
Probably not. But marginally.
(One can dream.)
Previously on...
Readers of our Music issue may recall that, when asked to submit a song connected to teaching, this editor’s contribution was My Chemical Romance’s “Teenagers.” It felt apt then. It feels, if anything, more apt now.
The song is not, on the surface, an obvious classroom choice. It is loud, it is a little anarchic, and its central premise is that teenagers are perceived as terrifying by the adults around them—a reputation the band treats with equal parts sympathy and glee. But underneath the noise is something more interesting: a portrait of adolescents who are reactive, emotionally dysregulated, desperate for peer approval, and acutely aware of being watched and judged. Which is to say, neurologically accurate.
Understanding the teenage brain does not make it quieter. It does not make the chaos feel like less of a personal affront. But it does make the chaos legible—and legible, as any teacher knows, is the first step toward manageable. The hard hat still applies. Bring it anyway.
Nicky De Proost has taught English at university level in Japan, specialising in media literacy and reading comprehension. Despite everything, she misses teaching adolescents terribly.