PLN 2

In Alison Gopnik’s essay, “What’s Wrong With the Teenage Mind”, she describes how adolescents are starting to hit puberty earlier and reaching adulthood later. Teenagers in today’s society are not exposed fully to the outside world until their early to mid-twenties. In earlier and more primitive times, children took the roles of adults around the pubescent years of their life, as they were physically and mentally capable. Gopnik supports this idea of earlier puberty and later roles of adulthood in her essay titled “What’s Wrong With the Teenage Mind?”.

Alison Gopnik displays her view on early puberty and later adulthood in her essay titled “What’s Wrong With the Teenage Mind?”. Children are hitting puberty earlier and reaching adulthood later. This is because of our school system. Children have begun to start school earlier, and finish school later. When students stay in school for a longer amount of time, their IQs become higher. Adolescents are also more well prepared for the real world and higher education. But delayed introduction to the real world can be a bad thing as well. They are placed into the real world at a time in their lives were the motivational drive of puberty has already washed over. Instead of underestimating risks adolescents tend to overestimate rewards. Teens strive for rewards in school that really are real rewards until they enter the real world much later in life.