I turned to some of my neurology resources to consider the question posed to me about how instilling confidence in kids can lead to achievement. That led me to the function of the striatum and recent experiments on how it acts differently during adolescence than adulthood.

Only because you are grounded in science am I sharing my initial thinking here…

I read about a study that concluded adolescents were more responsive to sugar stimulants than adults because their responding striatum produced more dopamine. As brains develop into adulthood, the frontal cortex takes greater control of impulse behaviors and limits this reward seeking drive—so less production. But in adolescents, it is keen. They crave their dopamine fixes.

This takes place in the striatum, a part of the basal ganglia that effectively controls cognition and social behavior. It also appears to play an important role in motivation.

Here are some key quotations I gleaned from the National Library of Medicine on the function of striatum:

· Since motivation is partly driven by predicted reward, a decrease in predicted reward leads to a lower chance of performing that activity while an increase in predicted reward leads to a higher chance of choosing that activity.

· Emotions are primal instincts engrained in humans that provide protection from their reward-seeking tendencies.

· …emotions can contradict the reward mechanism by preventing behavior that has previously resulted in negative reward feedback.

Adolescents crave reward. As the promise of reward increases, so does the drive and willingness to take risks (adolescents are more likely to run red lights when the promise of reward is high in video game experiments, for example, than their adult counterparts).

Imagine, then, a teacher who increases the promise of a reward by acknowledging, supporting, trusting, and stating belief in a kid’s capacity to accomplish something.

The possibility of reward increases, and so does the willingness to risk negative rewards for the positive ones.

Adults weigh the risks more rationally.

Also consider trauma associated with past failures to achieve rewards, which revises emotionality around particular risks (such as learning): a student tried, a teacher responded negatively, and the student built an emotional coping mechanism for the next time the circumstance arises.

Imagine, then, a teacher who decreases the promise of reward by ignoring, dismissing, minimizing, disgracing, and stating disbelief in a kid’s capacity to accomplish something.

The possibility of negative reward increases, and so does the emotional protection to evade risking positive rewards for negative ones.

Again, adults weigh risks more rationally.

So our objective as teacher educators is to develop dispositional attitudes that honor students, inspire confidence in them so they feel esteemed and build their own worth and self-esteem. It isn’t so simple as giving a word of encouragement—the presentation has to be holistic (and authentic), I think. It is complex and multifarious. But we have a starting point.

How we measure that disposition is a challenge. Nonetheless there is a neurological/physiological foundation for psychological conduct. Maybe at least we can name what we are looking for.