What knowledge do you have on brain science? Do you know how the brain develops as you grow from your teenage years into your early twenties? Have you heard of Phineas Gage? These questions are addressed in the texts “Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain” by Sarah Blakemore and “Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story of Brain Science” by John Fleischman. This essay consists of comparing and contrasting the two texts and Phineas Gage compared to a teenager in adolescence. Phineas’s behavior is similar to that of an adolescent brain because when people are going through adolescence, they are more prone to make risky decisions without properly taking the risks into account. Or maybe using inappropriate language, or even …show more content…
When Phineas’s accident happened, he was at the very end of adolescence or he was finished. Phineas was 25 years old when his brain was damaged. Typically adolescence ends in your late teens or early twenties, so it is hard for us to tell if his brain was fully developed pre-damage. Phineas did not display all of the adolescent-like behaviors, but he displayed most of them. It states in “Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story about Brain Science” by John Fleischman in paragraph 32 of the text “The new Phineas is unreliable and, at times, downright nasty. He insults old workmates and friends. He spouts vulgar language in the presence of women. He changes his mind and his orders from minute to minute.” When the author says the “new” Phineas, she means Phineas’s new personality post-accident. I also selected evidence from the text “Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain” by Sarah Blakemore, I found this piece of evidence in paragraph 5 it states “Around 12 or 13 years, and ending between 22 and 25 years. Many researchers today define adolescence as the interval between the biological changes of puberty and the point at which an individual attains a stable, independent role in society.” I chose this quote because it shows the ages of when adolescence is at its peak, as I mentioned previously Phineas was 25 when he had his incident. He was most likely done with adolescence by this time,
Analysis: This quote is based on the theme of envy. It is clear that Gene feels that Phineas can get away with anything. The reader can tell that Gene hate him because of this.
To begin with, Gene becomes envious of Phineas’ charismatic personality and persuasive ways. Gene tells himself that it is okay to be jealous of even a best friend, “I was beginning to see that Phineas could get away with anything. I couldn’t help envying him a little, which was perfectly normal. There was no harm in envying even your best friend a little” (18). Gene constantly saw Phineas doing whatever he wanted without getting in trouble. One example was when Phineas wore the Devon school tie as a belt, which was disrespectful, to afternoon tea. Gene hoped Phineas would get caught, but Phineas told an elaborate story about why he wore the tie as a belt to Mr. and Mrs. Patch-Withers, who believed him. Consequently, Gene felt jealous that Phineas had again
Two characters that I choose for this assignment are a careless and impulsive character in this movie, John Bender, or known as “the criminal”, and a character that being known as a nerd, that is Brian Johnson, or known as “the brain”. In reference to Piaget’s stages of cognitive development, I categorized Bender and Brian in a formal operational stage, that is the final stage of the cognitive development stage. It is because, both of them shows characteristic of adolescent egocentrism. As for Bender, we can see that he had developed the sense of invulnerability because he had taken many physical risks and do not think about the consequences.**
Adversity. A time of misfortune or distress. It’s like facing a problem that is super difficult to overcome. Many people think that they have gone through the worst—that they they have faced the most problems. But have they met Henrietta Lacks, Douglas Mawson, and Phineas Gage? Henrietta Lacks, Douglas Mawson, and Phineas Gage are all amazing people who have gone through the worst for the consideration of science. Doctors took healthy cells from Henrietta Lacks without her consent, and they then used them for research to make millions of dollars. Going on a hard, difficult journey was the story of Douglas Mawson; he also lost his only friends and almost died a few times. Phineas Gage’s story is also filled with adversity, in which he had an iron rod shoot through his head while staying conscious. Out of all of these people, however, Phineas Gage endured the most adversity for many reasons.
First, in the magazine article “Brainology,” Carol S. Dweck asserted that the way that students learn and how well they do in school
Phineas P. Gage was born in 1823. He was a railroad construction worker outside a small town of Cavendish, Vermont. On September 13, 1848, Phineas suffered from a traumatic brain injury, which caused severe damage to parts of his frontal brain due to his accident at work.
In times past and recent, a person may have expressed their gratefulness to another person with a statement such as, no one expected to lose their life when they woke up today. This case of Phineas Gage is still a modern mystery to some people, in as much, the fact that he survived this horrific incident was a true blessing and a wonder for all to see. At a period in history where the brain’s activities and functions was in high debated, scientist wanting to prove their theory and every situation that involved the brain an avenue in which they used to fuel their research, Phineas gave them an enormous amount of evidence. In making the point that the brain has different lobes that has control over their respective areas and motor skills of
clearly. Therefore, much about what experts know about mental and cognitive development is based on the careful observation of developmental theorists and their theories, such as Piaget's theory of cognitive development, which we discussed.
In 2007, Scientific American Mind published an article by Robert Epstein. In his article, Epstein raised the question of whether the teenage brain caused turmoil, or if turmoil shaped the brain. The author began by explaining a discredited theory that haunts teenagers today. It began in 1904 with G. Stanley Hall’s observation of adolescents who were left on the streets due to mass migration and immigration during the industrial revolution. Hall attributed the turmoil he observed to recapitulation, a biological theory in which adolescence mirrors the "savage, pigmoid" stage of evolutionary development (Epstein 2007).
As other experiments have been done, more statistics have found “a massive loss of brain tissues occurs in the teen years”, this supports his idea that brain lack of awareness due to the missing of important tissues. In another article “Adolescent Brains Open to Change: teens’ neural wiring is extra sensitive to outside influence” by Laura Sander, it explains that the brain is still in the process of development and when it comes to new influence, the brain needs time to adjust to our own age.... ... middle of paper ... ...
Piaget versus Vygotsky: Similarities and Differences This paper explores the ideas of Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky. Exploring their philosophies and how they impact us today. The two scholarly articles show similarities and differences in their works and explore what they each mean. Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky are two of the most influential philosophers in the field of cognitive development.
Bradley-Ruder, D. (2008). A work in progress: The teen brain. Retrieved November 18, 2011 from http://harvardmagazine.com/2008/09/the-teen-brain.html
Bruer, John T. The Myth of the First Three Years: A New Understanding of Early Brain Development and Lifelong Learning. New York: The Free Press 1999.
In fact, it is important to understand that: "The brain continues to be a new frontier. Our old way of schooling is fading fast as our understanding of the brain increases. Everything you do uses your brain, and everything at school involves students' brains.
New Releases. (n.d.). The adolescent brain: Beyond raging hormones. Retrieved November 30, 2013, from http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog-extra/the-adolescent-brain-beyond-raging-hormones