Transcript Eliminating Prejudice

Eliminating Prejudice
By Clara Brill-Carlat
Goals for an Ideal Middle School
• Safe environment for school community
• Eliminate prejudice
• Eliminate prejudice-related stress
Prejudice
• Conservatives tend to have larger amygdala (fear
sensor)
• Prejudice = using amygdala (being afraid) when
coming into contact with people of certain race,
gender, sexual orientation, etc.
• Liberals usually have more activity in Anterior
Cingulate Cortex (dealing with conflicts)
Anterior Cingulate Cortex
The Teen Brain
• Amygdala used more often
(fear sensor)
• Prefrontal cortex not fully matured
• Connections between amygdala and PFC not
completely developed
• Teens think/react with amygdala (maybe
easier for teenagers to be prejudiced)
• Teenagers get big dopamine boosts from
taking risks (pleasure)
Long-Term Stress
• When stressed, signals go from hypothalamus to
pituitary gland
• Pituitary gland makes adrenal cortex produce cortisol
(hormone)
• Cortisol keeps levels of blood pressure and blood
sugar up
Too Much Cortisol
• Harms memory (kills/damages brain cells in
hippocampus)
• Makes neurons let more calcium diffuse into
membrane
• Too much calcium makes neurons fire too often and die
• May lower number of new cells created in adult brains
(new neurons are made in some parts of adults’ brains)
• Can affect blood pressure and fats in blood
• Increases probability of heart attack, stroke
• Harms immune system
An Ideal Middle School Would...
• Eliminate prejudice and prejudice-related
stress
• Help teenagers break prejudiced amygdala
connections
• Allow teens to make new connections in
prefrontal cortex (would make teenagers
reason that they should not be automatically
afraid of certain types of people)
Ideal Middle School
• More diversity in students, faculty, visitors
• Exchange students (learn about other cultures)
• Students experience different environments, cultures
by taking field trips
• Clubs, discussion groups, class activities dealing with
diversity/culture
• Special class for researching and sharing information
about other cultures students are interested in
• Do same in lower school (continue to build on
knowledge in middle school)
Ideal Middle School
• Have students build trust/spend time with other
students from different schools, backgrounds,
cultures
• Use safe, pleasurable risk-taking activities to get
dopamine boosts
• Teenagers get lots of pleasure from risks (brain
makes more dopamine or dopamine receptors)
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Dopamine receptors
Possible Activities
• Do activities with students from different schools,
backgrounds, countries
• Scavenger hunt in the dark at school or outside
with other students (teamwork, establish trust)
• Navigate obstacle course with other students
(have reward at end to stimulate reward pathway,
motivate teenagers to work together)
• Students would come up with activity involving
safe risks, figure out how to do it with other
students (i.e. learn how to make bonfire without
matches, pole vault, etc.)
Conclusion: An Ideal Middle School
• Safe risk-taking activities with students from
different backgrounds, countries, schools
• A class about different cultures
• Incorporate discussions and information about
diversity into classes
Picture Sources
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http://mybrainnotes.com/memory-brain-stress.html
http://www.endocrine.niddk.nih.gov/pubs/cushings/cushings.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anterior_cingulate_cortex
http://alert.psychiatricnews.org/2011/08/brain-receptor-gives-clues-toadhd.html
• http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~sjjgnle/