PROVIDENCE — The typical teenager has more in common with your household pet than you might think.

Teenagers operate from the gut. They haven’t learned abstract thinking or how to generalize from one experience, according to Abigail Baird, director of Laboratory of Adolescent Studies at Vassar College, who kicked off yesterday’s conference on after-school programs at the Providence Marriott hotel.

The daylong forum drew national and local leaders to discuss how to create an ideal learning environment for middle school students and was sponsored by the Providence After School Alliance (PASA) and the Rhode Island After School Plus Alliance, a statewide program.

When students reach middle school, their most important relationships are with their peers. Their friends are the ones who provide social cues about which clothes are hot and which are not, which boys are cute and which are dorks, and so forth. Baird described something called the Haley effect, in which students, when asked the same question, tend to mimic the answers of their peers rather than risk an answer that might earn them ridicule.

“Kids need the opportunity to take risks and learn from them,” Baird told several hundred educators and after-school providers. “After-school programs can provide the perfect opportunity to experiment.”

Mayor David N. Cicilline asked a panel of experts how programs like PASA can integrate the academic or school day with the world of after-school activities. Priscilla Little, associate director of the Harvard Family Research Project, said research has shown that teenagers want new challenges and new relationships. They want to take risks as long as there is an adult who can rein them in.

“They want autonomy — with a leash,” Little said. “They want opportunity and safety.”

The best after-school programs, she said, are able to walk that fine line.

Cicilline wanted to know how policymakers can demonstrate the connection between academic achievement and the soft skills learned in after-school activities. Edward Dulaney, project director for the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning, said one study showed that students with a social component to their learning scored 11 percent higher on standardized tests than students who weren’t exposed to this kind of activity.

How do you hook students, and, once they’re in the after-school program, how do you keep them there?

Building relationships with parents is critical if you want to engage their children, Little said. According to Delaney, no program will last without the support of the school principal and staff.

“Get a champion on your staff,” he told the crowd. “They can really encourage students to get involved.”

Baird cautioned against over-programming the teen’s day, adding that middle school students need time to play and unwind from the school day.

“We’re over-testing kids,” Baird said. “Students don’t have fun in school any more. If a child is too sheltered, they can’t take healthy risks. Kids need to figure out how to broker their own arguments and how to budget their time. These lessons are more important than learning algebra.”

School Board President Mary McClure asked why policymakers continue to separate the school day from what comes after when what children really need is a seamless approach to learning and play. School districts across the country are experimenting with the length and structure of the school day, the panelists said. Some schools have extended their day and now offer extracurricular activities during the afternoon. Others close and then reopen at night, inviting parents to participate in after-school activities with their children.

Until schools can expand their boundaries and let in the community, they will never truly reach students in a meaningful way, said Peter McWalters, state commissioner of elementary and secondary education.

“Unless you engage the most alienated student, then all the high standards in the world won’t change the demographics of adults,” he said. “We sort kids into gifted and remedial by the fourth grade. Once the kids are sorted, the system doesn’t adapt. And we wonder why eighth-grade scores are lower.

“We have to figure out how to get kids to take command of their own learning,” he said. “Whenever I hear of an at-risk kid who made it, it’s because an adult provided the guidance, the push and self-love to do so.”

In elementary school, the teachers spend the entire day with their students. They feel a responsibility toward those youngsters. It’s all personal. By the time that child reaches middle school, it begins to fall apart. Schools get much bigger and students move from one class to another. By high school, McWalters said, “No one is talking to anyone.”

That has to change.

There is no reason, McWalters said, why the school day can’t start at 7 a.m. and end at 10 p.m. But to make that kind of seamless educational system work, principals, teachers and policymakers have to put aside their turf issues and work together.

lborg@projo.com