In middle and high school, the brain is changing so much. Common sense and good judgment catch hold maybe by the mid-twenties. "Full" emotional maturity takes a few years longer. Beyond this biological timeline, teenagers are dealing with screen overload and massive, rapid changes in global social and environmental conditions.

How are you supposed to contain all this in your head? Don't try. Use your head to learn how to self-regulate by sorting the input and allowing it to move. Executive functioning is about helping bring some order to chaos, by planning, checking in, and directing the traffic in your brain, including your emotions. In other words, it's a set of processes that can transform stress into knowledge, motivation, and action.

If you investigate your process, you can develop tools to deal with stress (and school work) as it comes up. By understanding how stress arises and moves, you can use your attention to consciously work with it in constructive ways, adapting instead of collapsing.

Most importantly, you can learn to tell the difference between what you can handle by yourself and what you need help with. As this becomes clearer with practice, you gain confidence. No one can do it all alone. Knowing when you need help is power.

"I don't want you to make the same mistakes I did!"

Have you heard this parental lament when it comes to school? What kind of mistakes do you want kids to make? Clamp down on them too hard and watch them take it to the next level.

Instead of provoking a game of one-upmanship, allow exactly those same (non-life-threatening) mistakes, the ones we all learn from. Allow them early and often without shame. Young people will figure their own ways out and be more likely to ask for help when they can't.

The less big a deal you make of a rhythm of academic underperformance, the more receptive they will be to accepting suggestions and help to change it the next time around. Focus less on having fallen off the horse and more on how to get back on.

And if they don't care? Find out what they do care about and take it from there. Partnership works better than dominance.

A year out of school doesn't have to be a year "off". With or without the variables introduced by a pandemic, there are excellent reasons for not jumping directly into college, even if you know that's what you want to do eventually.

Whether you're getting deferred admission or waiting to apply, a gap year can be the opportunity for resetting goals, deepening skills and motivations, or exploring your interests through work, internships, and volunteering.

Here's another thing: maybe you're not ready. Even if your transcripts and applications look good, you might not feel you have the maturity or life skills to take the next step. This is actually a sign of maturity in that you're willing to make an honest self-assessment.

If you find a mentor and make an alternate plan for the year that involves real exploration and work, you can set yourself up for more purposeful engagement with college once you get there. There's no substitute for encounters with the real world. Having them in a directed way that guides your further education is the smartest step some students can take.

With everything you know you can't do right now, how about extending your capacities and imagine what you could do?

Whether you're starting from scratch or picking up where you left off, music presents challenge and enjoyment in equal measure. Even the most basic lesson can unlock an experience of improvisation and fun. 

Playing activates your brain, ears and hands in ways that nothing else really can. There's plenty of cross over into the mathematical and poetic aspects of your brain, too. Yes, I'm saying music is cross training for algebra and writing. 

You can be playing a pentatonic scale on the guitar or piano in one lesson. If you've got some experience under your belt, you can improvise to jam tracks, write your own tunes, or play standards as a way to connect to the world outside.

The possibilities for latency-free online jamming are starting to come into being. Search it up and see what fun you can have with your friends from across town or across the country. 

Depending on your school's schedule, things are coming down to the wire. Teachers are figuring out how to do testing. School grading policies might still be coming into focus. Eighth-grade students and seniors are facing an uncertain future transition. Parents are tired and hoping for the best.

That's all you can do. Your best, but gently. Make your plan. Have some online study groups. Finish those papers. Ask for the help you need. Then, for whatever tests are coming your way, trust your preparation and go with it. 

Don't pull an all-nighter. You won't test as well. Don't give up completely. You've come this far. Make your best effort without going overboard. Your sustainable best. 

I'm amazed by the work everyone I work with, young people and adults, has put in to adapt to working from home. Wishing you the best at the finish line. 

With everything happening on screen, it's easy to feel trapped. Even if you're using a second device to spread things out, you've got little else to look at. If you get migraines or just plain fatigue from all this screen time, it makes sense to think about how to break things up.

For some of my tutoring clients, with the agreement of their parents, spending all or part of our sessions with cameras off makes sense. We're still sharing a document to collaborate, but the demands on the eyes are lessened.

If you're someone who prefers taking notes on paper, or are just getting into the habit of note-taking and prefer handwriting over typing, a notebook is your friend. At least half your class time can be spent looking at paper instead of screen. Then, when you go to review and study, and even write first drafts, you can continue to be off-screen.

Try using a physical text for any class where it's an option, instead of pdfs or web-based materials. You'll free up screen space for writing or other reference and be spending more time with paper.

Finally, and I know this is a stretch, you might think about taking some of your gaming and entertainment off the screen and into the analog world. Cribbage is great for basic number sense and strategy. Reading books helps your imagination develop and bring scenes to life.

There are so many different experiences developing around remote learning. Some ISPs are stepping up to make faster internet available for free or at lower cost for families in need. Individual schools, districts and nonprofits are finding ways to make devices and resources more widely available. Teachers, as usual, are going the extra mile to adapt to new demands. 

A few tech items go a long way toward improving the experience online. Headphones are key, especially if you've got siblings and parents working in close proximity. If your wi-fi is glitchy, see if you can connect to your router with an ethernet cable. Adapters are available for laptops. Hard-wired connections usually make for a better experience.

Keep light sources, whether from fixtures or windows, out of frame behind you. Better to be in front of a wall. Place a lamp slightly off center past the top of your screen, so it shines on you without being directly in your eyes. Sitting facing a window can work, too.

If you've got a phone, tablet, or second screen, see how you can make use of it to spread out what you're looking at. Great to have Zoom on one screen (say, a tablet) and the document you're working with on another (maybe your laptop).

Save your teachers and classmates from motion sickness! Keep your device on a stable surface, not your lap. Staying on mute when you're not speaking helps keep the noise down. Phew, it's a lot to track. We're cyborgs, now.

<- This is not how you do it! 

Your teachers and classmates want to see your entire face. There should be just a small bit of headroom (space between the top of your head and the top of the frame) in your shot.

Hats, hoodies, and hair are all part of your individual look, but be sure to follow your school's guidelines and make your face available. 

It's all in service of maintaining a connection with your teachers. Nonverbal cues are harder to read over the internet, if only because you're in a tiny box. Make the camera your friend.



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We are just at the beginning of this rhythm in time. Students of history will already be thinking about Cassandra, the 1918 pandemic, Isaac Newton's productivity surge during the Great Plague, and so on, reminding us all that history and nature play out in cyclical narratives with repeating patterns.

For the immediate future, my local students in San Francisco will be joining those I already work with online. I've taught literature and writing to small groups on Zoom since last year and am happy to have a head start using this technology. I'm confident I can help you make the best of remote learning with tips both for school classes and tutoring.

Working on writing and organization can even be easier online, since we're dealing with shared documents much of the time. Now we don't have to crane our necks to look at each other's screens! This format will affect everyone a little differently. It will accentuate challenges for some, while others may find they prefer it.

There's so much to discover and adjust to. Change is the only real constant. Let's keep our positive attitudes, compassion for one another, and remember to take breaks from our screens as we dive in. 

Literature comes alive when read out loud, and best if it's done with some panache, even if you're working alone. Characters make their impression based on what they say, what they do, and what others say about them.
Note these qualities and infuse your character's dialogue with them as you read.

Stand up. Physicalize the character traits. Smile if they are happy, smirk if they're nasty, turn up your nose if they're snobby, grit your teeth a little if they're angry. This will help bring the right color of emotion into your voice. 

You'll be surprised at the insights and questions that come up. Note them. By living the story from within the characters this way, you'll start to more fully understand their motivations, making it easier to see what they stand for in the story and bring your knowledge into your writing.

This even works with history. Or math. That's right. The strange and complex beauty of the quadratic equation has character. Play around. Talk yourself through the steps of calculations adding a little emotion, or an accent. This can make it fun, helps with focus, and get you unstuck when you're bogged down.