I've focused much of the past two years on the underlying neurobiology of adolescence. Corwin Press recently published the result of my efforts,The Adolescent Brain: Reaching for Autonomy (2007).

Adolescence has been integral to much of my life. Like all adults, I was once an adolescent. My wife and I have seven children who made their own adolescent journeys -- and we have 20 grandchildren who are now contemplating, experiencing, or completing adolescence. Further, I've taught thousands of adolescents during my professional career. I'm continually amazed by both the regularity and variability observed within adolescence – and I'm fascinated by the important new insights into adolescence that are emerging out of cognitive neuroscience research.

Adolescence as Art

The concepts regularity and variability suggest that we might think of adolescence as an art form. Art, like life, transforms the ordinary into something extraordinary. An artistic expression isn't generally impressive during its formative stages, when the artist is exploring various possibilities of what the expression will eventually become. When it's finally complete though, folks have to accept the artistic expression for what it's become. They may or may not like it, but they have to respect its completed intrinsic integrity.

Art is a unique expression that emerges out of the regularities of a defined form. A piano concerto follows a form, but no two composed concertos (or paintings or dramas) are the same. If artistic expression is reproducible, it becomes craft. There's certainly nothing wrong with predictable craft, but it isn't unique art. Art can morph into craft, and craft can morph into art, but each has a distinct legitimate identity.

Let's think thus of the developmental focus of our compliant sheltered childhood as something akin to craft, and the adolescent reach for an autonomous adulthood as art.

From Childhood Craft to Adult Art

CHILDHOOD: An infant isn't much more than a wet noisy pet, 20 or so years from becoming an autonomous adult. A key childhood task is to master the predictable regularities of existing human knowledge and skills -- the fluid movements, local language, cultural information, and social skills that characterize childhood learning.

Childhood brain development is focused on cognitive systems (located principally in the sensory lobes toward the back of our brain's cortex) that recognize the familiar and novel dynamics of the challenges we continually confront. A child must learn the regularities and irregularities that are implicit in how the world works. Will a specific dropped object bounce, break, or splat? How do I tie my shoes or phone for help? How much is 6 X 5? Will the leaves fall again during autumn?

Childhood learning thus resembles craft, in that it focuses on the predictable, the reproducible, the rules. A child tends to view the world in factual true and false terms, because it's very important for a brain to rapidly and accurately determine the general and specific nature of the challenges it confronts. Being able to classify many objects and events into a small number of general categories is thus essential. For example, although no two leaves under a maple tree are identical, they're all maple leaves.