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Neuroscience isn’t on many elementary school lesson plans. But this spring, a second grade class at Fairmont Neighborhood School in the South Bronx is plunging in.

Sarah Wechsler, an instructional coach with wide eyes and a marathoner’s energy, asks the students to think about the development and progress that they’ve made already in their lives.

“Your brain can get smarter. For example if you need help with your work, your brain is there in your head for you.”

After watching a video with a cartoon brain, and doing an exercise where yarn stands in for connections between neurons, they seem to have absorbed the main point of the lesson. “There is stuff in your brain that if you take on a challenge and if you stick with it, it makes your brain smarter and it makes you smarter,” says one girl.

And Wechsler makes sure they also know the day’s big vocabulary word.

“Neuroplasticity! Say it to the light! Say it to the floor! Tell it to your brain!”

The children here aren’t just learning this word for a little science enrichment. They’re learning it because their school, and the nonprofit Wechsler works with, called Turnaround for Children, are trying to put a wave of science experiments into practice. The big mission: empower children growing up in poverty with the research-based tools to transform their own developing brains. And that means, in part, giving them the understanding that brains can indeed grow, change, and heal.

How To Apply The Brain Science Of Resilience To The Classroom

You might belong in Gryffindor, Where dwell the brave at heart, Their daring, nerve, and chivalry Set Gryffindors apart;

You might belong in Hufflepuff, Where they are just and loyal, Those patient Hufflepuffs are true And unafraid of toil;

Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw, if you’ve a ready mind, Where those of wit and learning, Will always find their kind;

Or perhaps in Slytherin You’ll make your real friends, Those cunning folks use any means To achieve their ends.

and you’re all wondering which one of you is going to have to write them up:

who refuses flu shots because “like 1 in 5 people get sick when they have a flu shot and I can’t afford to get sick because I have asthma.” 

This is WHY YOU NEED THE FLU SHOT. 

Little aches after getting the shot is not what I mean by “sick”. When I say you will get sick with the flu, I mean you will get hospital sick. Like ventilator sick. Like maybe die sick. It makes me sick even thinking about the fact that someone would refuse a potentially life-saving vaccination.

Also - I didn’t argue or dispute with this patient at all. I told them they needed a flu shot and they launched into a diatribe about why they didn’t need it and they never let me say another word. Their response had very little to do with the way I worded “you need a flu shot because you have asthma”. 

True fact: this patient is playing russian roulette with their life. They could die. 

In fact, I saw an asthmatic woman in her early twenties roll into the ICU a couple days ago. She now has ARDS. She’s going to die. Right before the holidays, she’s going to die. And her infant child will never get to know her. She never picked up her inhaler, never got her required immunizations. Her husband is now completely devastated. He regrets not encouraging her to take care of herself. He tells EVERY SINGLE NURSE AND DOCTOR HE MEETS how sorry he is. How can I not feel strongly when I see an asthmatic patient in the clinic after I see a scene like that?

I am, myself, an asthmatic. I have been educated by my pediatrician and my internist to get an annual flu shot, shitty side effects be damned, because they’d rather see me alive than dead. I’m inclined to agree. And I’ve had terrible exacerbations as a child, such that I’ve required steroids, I’ve thought I was straight-up going to die.

Doctors are human. We get angry. We need a safe space to express our feelings, our frustrations. Reasonable doctors aren’t shitty to their patients. Should I expect someone in the service industry to always be smiling and helpful even outside of work? Should I expect professors to always act like professors outside of work?

 NO. SO WHY ARE DOCTORS HELD TO UNREASONABLE STANDARDS?

More Carol love!!!

In the form of art!

Because, the artist is, in fact, my good friend, in REAL LIFE.