Planet Improv has just begun its second semester, third and fourth quarters of school year 2023-24 classes with our new students.

What is interesting (to us) is that the female members of our student body substantially outnumber the male members in most of our classes.

And as much as we discourage stereotypical thinking (prejudging) our students, we continue to experience (as we have over our seventeen years in classrooms) significant differences between the young ladies and gentlemen in our classes.

(Below) is a post from thehillernewpaper.org that discusses the proverbial myth or scientific reality that girls’ brains mature faster than boys’.

Girls’ brains mature faster than boys’: fact or fiction?

by Kayla Denke

For a long time, many have heard that girls are the more mature gender, whereas boys tend to act childlike their entire lives. Is this true, or is it a myth?

Mr. Poletti was questioned about how different the world would be if the stereotype was reversed, and he responded with, “I think that the standard of what is appropriate in commonplace would be vastly different, as attaining the favor of another who is desired would be approached from a position of respect instead of acquisition.”

In a 2006 article from ABC News, “The Truth Behind Women’s Brains,” Dr. LouAnn Brizendine explains the difference between the male and female brain, differences that are observable from birth.

A female brain is identifiable from the moment a girl is born; however, it is not until males begin to produce testosterone that their brains are distinguishable from a female’s.

As puberty starts, female brains jump to at least two years older than their physical age. Males, however, usually take until their late teen years or even early twenties to match their female peer’s mental age.

Poletti added, “Things that a man can do, and get away with, could not possibly be expected from a woman.”

Males ideally use one hemisphere of their brains compared to a woman who uses the centers of both hemispheres. Both hemispheres activate responses to stimuli such as faces and emotions. These responses are activated by the hippocampus, which is the root of emotional memory. This explains why a male roughly says 7,000 words a day compared to a woman who roughly says 20,000 words a day.

Since males use mainly one hemisphere of their brain, they don’t use their hippocampus, which makes it more difficult for them to show and read emotion.

Now to ask the question once again, is it a myth that females are the more mature gender, or is it scientifically true? According to Brizendine, scientifically, it’s safe to say that females tend to mature faster than males.

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Planet Improv is always skeptical of blanket statements on student behavior and maturation levels or lack thereof.

Just because someone shares a characteristic(s) with other students does not mean that they will mirror the behavior or maturation level of the other students.  Nature and nurture are just too varied and complicated to make those simplistic conclusions.

However, perhaps we are “hard wired” as humans and of the sexes to follow certain patterns in the majority.

That is one of the millions of things that makes working with students of all ages and grade levels so fascinating, fulfilling, and sometimes frustrating.