Nathan Mikaere Wallis: The Fascinating Brain
- Rebecca Smye-Rumsby
- Oct 26, 2017
- 2 min read
The Fascinating Brain
Early years are the most important in terms of brain development. The first 1000 days of your life is where you brain figures out it’s environment and what it’s important. Intelligence is not as genetic as you think. Your interaction with your environment is so important. You inherit genes that predetermine your mental state which responds to your experiences. There are a number of factors that impact on your mental state, such as contact time with parents when young and also childhood trauma.
Explanation of the brain
Brain 1 (survival brain)+ Brain 2 is (movement brain) = Reptillian brain
Brain 3 is (emotion brain) = Mammalian brain
Frontal cortex- differentiates us from other animals, empathy is here too, the habits are here.
Factors that impact on brain development
There are factors that can lead to how fast your brain develops and how healthy your mental state is.
The age in which the frontal cortex is fully developed varies from person to person, however an average age is 26. Females (18-24) tends to be faster than male (up to 32). The human brain is focused on negative feedback as this is a survival instinct.
You will have risk factors in life which can slow down brain development however this can be counteracted with resilience factors. Childcare is not great for child development and would be considered a risk factor. Birth order can also be a huge developmental factor (due one-on-one parent attention).
Resilience factors include having a stable family as well as speaking a second language or playing an instrument.
Refer to Perry’s Neurosequential Model for more information
Considerations as a teacher
A human baby’s survival skill is to form attachment. The development of the limbic system is based heavily around play as this is a way of accessing resilience. It's OK to play.
The frontal cortex kind of goes to sleep during adolescence. During this time you see that emotions/decisions/consequences might not be controlled in the same way. Only around 10 percent of the time, adolescents can function with their frontal cortex.
Relationship trumps everything
How does this affect kids that end up with a teacher that they don’t get on with?
Comments