Reactions and thoughts on Thursday’s Class:

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=zDZFcDGpL4U&vq=medium

RSA video: Makes a lot of sense.  Our education system probably should be restructured, but how do we as teachers working within the current system implement some of these ideas?   The biggest takeaway for me was on the importance of group learning/work AND learning in a way that engages multiple senses as much as possible.  We must entertain to teach--well not exactly but in a way.  We need to be able to get the students attention and keep it.  We have to make the material relevant and important to them.

http://www.edutopia.org/stw-kipp-critical-thinking-overview-video

Edutopia/KIPP video: Inspirational. This definitely seems like an example of setting the bar high, expecting students to reach it and they rise to the challenge. 

http://www.edutopia.org/stw-kipp-critical-thinking-10-tips-for-teaching

Edutopia tips for teaching: Bookmarked.  This is great. I especially like the sentence starters and connectors.

 http://www.besmartbewell.com/std/street.htm#.TzyKaH-JOYk.email

STD videos: Don’t get me started. The willful ignorance about sex and STDs enrages me. This site is great. Good videos. Candid discussion.  I fully appreciate that they have a few people who openly talk about  getting and dealing with having STDs.  I think we need more people who will openly talk about this stuff.  There’s just such a stigma; too many people are too embarrassed to have open conversations. 

Reflective Response 4-Behavioral Development

Today’s readings are on everyone’s favorite, behavioral development.  The facts are scary and the list of contributing risk factors can seem endless and daunting.  It seems that behavioral problems are everyone’s biggest or at least loudest concern when it comes to adolescents.  This is probably because we/they forget or don’t realize that some risk taking is normal and even healthy behavioral development, which, given what we know about all the other developments and changes, ought to make perfect sense to us.  Perhaps we’re all just a little scared that risk taking in adolescents is a slippery slope so go down: if we allow a child to take risks and don’t try to stint these behaviors, what else might to child try? What other risks might the child take? And then our minds zoom forward to all the terrible things we see in real life and in the media, which often focuses on the negatives of teenage risk-taking and behavioral problems.  What seems most obvious, what the readings seem to reiterate and, sadly, what’s easiest to forget is that allowing for risk taking is all about moderation.  To get and keep the moderation we must be diligent in allowing freedoms, paying attention, listening, understanding, not rushing to judge, and encouraging risk taking in healthy and positive pathways and mediums.  “Developing Adolescents” suggests that we encourage teens with a passion for art to explore new mediums within art, or just encourage teens in general to take up positive adventures in volunteering, sports, music, etc.  It seems to me that a big thing that teachers and parents can do is expose children/teens to new things and ideas and encourage them to try new things themselves.  Auditioning for a school play can seem pretty risky and could help a teen take a risk in a positive way rather than a negative one. At the same time, it seems important to pay attention to a teens peer group and encourage/guide teens to find positive influences there as well and as much as is possible; obviously, we don’t get to dictate who is friends with whom.  

According to the reading we, as teachers, can also help encourage positive behavioral simply by having stable, positive relationships with students, implementing group activities that emphasize cooperation and responsibility, and having high expectations of students.  It seems that this is true with all students/teens.  We also need to be aware of other circumstances and be educated in those areas.  “Teen Depression” and “The Future for Teens in Foster Care” both had a ton of good information that I’ll be bookmarking a saving as references.  I found it all to be good information but also really hard to process all at once. I understand that that’s the nature of this section, but it’s still hard to absorb all at once all the hardships that teens these days can face. I suppose we just have to have a little cry then try to remember the facts and try to stay alert and aware. Certainly, knowing all this makes me feel more sympathetic to the teens who I know one day will drive me crazy. Maybe that’s part of the point.  When they start to drives us nuts, we have to remember that it’s tough being an adolescent.

I guess that scariest part of all this for me is the not knowing how much I’ll be allowed to be involved and to influence.  What information will and won’t I be allowed to distribute.   I know that I’ll be their English teacher but teen sex and sex in general is a hot topic especially for me.  I believe that the importance of sex education cannot be overly emphasized.  Ignorance on STDs and the need for contraception runs rampant. It seems that no one wants to talk about the ‘icky’ stuff.  Most of our society doesn’t even seem comfortable with the proper names for genitalia much less talking about protecting it and our selves.  The misconceptions that I’ve heard from adults have rocked me to my core.  I can’t even begin to imagine the stuff that under-informed teens believe.  I get that it’s hard to talk about especially with children, but it has to be done.  We care about these kids and we want to protect them; so it ought to be a given that we can arm them with the information that will help protect them.  I have the information, and I have the desire to share the information. I’m just terrified that I won’t be allowed to share in the information.  I mean this stuff is terrifying:

http://www.ncsl.org/issues-research/health/state-policies-on-sex-education-in-schools.aspx

I know that abstinence only sex education is also hot topic these days, but honestly I can’t wrap my head around why.  I’ve heard and processed the arguments, but, at the end of the day, some teens are going to have sex. We can’t stop them. The only thing we can do is try to encourage them to protect themselves.  We can encourage them to wait while still providing them with the facts so that they can make an informed decision whether they wait or not. Honestly, I wish it were every teacher’s responsibly to provide this information.  English teachers could use the Scarlet letter to talk about contraception; math and science teachers could discuss friction and the important of proper lubrication so that condoms don’t break; biology teachers could talk about diseases, STDs, what’s different about a virus versus other infections.  My point is that it’s all relatable. We could teach them some of the sex education every day and in different ways so that they could understand it.  But how much are we allowed to say? Have you seen this? http://www.examiner.com/article/nashville-and-los-angeles-differ-greatly-sex-education

Reflective Response 3-Social Development

This week’s readings were on social development of adolescents.  I found much of the information in “Adolescent Development” extremely interesting and insightful. For instance, though adolescents establish greater independence by spending more time with their peers, they do not generally place less importance on their relationship with their parents.  So, despite that fact that it seems adolescents are pulling away, they still need and want closeness with their parents.  The paragraphs on parent-teen conflict were also especially enlightening.  It seems good advice for teachers and other professionals to remind parents that “minor conflict and bickering is normal” as I’m sure being the parent of an adolescent can be exhausting and overwhelming.  I would imagine that even small reassurances such as this would make a positive difference in the parent-child relationship, and that has to have a positive impact in other areas as well.  I would imagine that giving such reassurances to parents would be self-serving to teachers as well in that if the parent-child relationship is better, this could have a positive impact on the child’s studies.

The section on dating in adolescents seemed mostly common sense, but I appreciated that they addressed the importance of discussing the risks of sexual acts other than just sex.  It is rather amazing the misconceptions that teens (and sometimes adults) have about sex and sex acts.  I also appreciated the reminder to check state laws and institutional policies before jumping in with students to discuss these things.

The section on work also held some great information that I’ll take with me.  For instance, the negative effects of students working more than twenty hours a week are certainly something that I’ll remember. The section on faith institutions had good information but I just couldn’t see the relevance of how I could use that in the classroom. On the other hand, the media section gave me plenty to think about in regards to my classroom and giving advice to parents. 

The other three articles for the week were a bit of a mixed bag for me.  I guess gangs are a hot topic these days or since they first seriously developed in the 1800s.  I found some good information within them, but I also found them to be a bit redundant especially the “National Young Gang Survey Analysis” and the “National Gang Center Bulletin.”  Certainly, I think it’s great to understand a bit of gang related history and facts, but I guess that I just found it sad that at best gang problems are stagnant but some areas are getting worse.  It made a lot of sense that smaller populated areas have less gang related problems and high populations have worse gang problems. Otherwise, I’m afraid that I didn’t take much away from those two articles. However the “Practice Perspectives” article had some other good information.  All of the information on why young people join gangs and the warning signs are highlighted portions that I’ll be keeping with me as a teacher.

Reflective Response 2: Cognitive & Emotional Development

            **Forgive me as I wander a bit through my thoughts on this week’s readings.  I found them highly informative and mildly overwhelming in the plethora of important information.  I have many thoughts and not the patience to organize them properly.**

Cognitive and Emotional Development seem so closely related that it makes sense that these two were paired into one day’s reading.  In fact, it seems almost impossible to examine one without at least acknowledging and considering the other; cognitive and emotional seem join together into a ball of momentum that rolls and often meshs into a mess of development. Here’s what I mean: a child develops the ability to think abstractly and about the future and, therefore, to set personal goals (cognitive development).  Because a child is now able to set personal goals, he/she is now able to begin to build a sense of identity (emotional development).  As a child develops a personal identity, he/she is more aware of his/her cognitive abilities.  What a child believes to be a cognitive strength can affect what he/she does or tries to do.  This, in turn, may affect the child’s sense of identity because it can change the set of beliefs about his/herself and his/her goals.  It’s clear that these developments do not happen in a vacuum or seperate from each other.  The “Two-Footed Questions” article certainly connects the cognitive and the emotional by suggesting that teachers ask questions that are both relevant to the academic material and to the student. 

I felt that the “Urie Bronfenbrenner” article was interesting; the different levels of a child’s environment make a lot of sense and give us terms to use to talk about these different levels and the impact that each level can have on a child.  

I found “The Maturing Adolescent Brain” to be informative and especially helpful for parents and teachers; I might even recommend it to the parents of a few teenagers I know. 

“Surviving (Your Child’s) Adolescence” was a great read about self-esteem; there was some good advice on helping adolescence build self-esteem.  Most of it seems pretty standard and common sense to a degree, but not in a negative way at all.  I also appreciate the disclaimer at the end of the article, which basically states that self-esteem can also be too high and that it does not necessarily mean that someone a good person just because he/she has high self-esteem. 

While that article was great; it seemed more geared towards parents.  On the other hand, I thoroughly enjoyed Manning’s “Self-Concept and Self-Esteem in Adolescents.”  I thought she did a great job of defining and explaining the two terms and how they factor into teaching and help students with behavioral problems.  The whole notion of not assuming that a child with behavioral problems has low self-esteem but that we should also be concerned with the child’s competencies and self-perceptions and that this will have the domino effect of increasing self-concept and eventually self-esteem was a bit of brilliance.

 I also enjoyed learning about emotional intelligence in Goleman’s article. I found it interesting and it made a lot of good sense to me.

I found it very interesting at first to find moral development within the Cognitive Developments readings.  After reading the articles and reflecting, I am a little embarrassed at my original surprise.  In fact, it makes perfect sense: moral development stems from a person’s ability to think abstractly and to think about things and people other than oneself.  Some of the suggestions for fostering moral development make a lot of sense but were revelations to me. For instance, it makes sense that volunteering can foster a sense of community and purpose, but I was mildly and pleasantly shocked to read the example in “Developing Adolescents” which states that a national study found that girls who volunteer are “significantly less likely to become pregnant or fail academically.” I had never thought much about volunteering being good for the person doing the volunteer work other than it making them feel good.  I shared this nugget of information joyfully with a friend who quickly pointed out that correlation does not indicate causation.  Smile wiped away, I quickly took to my computer to try to replace it and find more information on the benefits of volunteering.  These made me feel a little better:

http://www.helpguide.org/life/volunteer_opportunities_benefits_volunteering.htm

http://www.girlscouts.org/for_adults/volunteering/articles/10way_self_confidence.asp

http://www.girlscouts.org/research/publications/volunteerism/community_connection.asp

http://www.courierpress.com/news/2011/mar/28/volunteering-provides-a-great-way-for-teens-to/?partner=RSS

            Now that I feel a little better, let’s talk about the articles that made me feel terrible about the world; the Hot Topics: “All Children Matter” had so much great information; the only not wonderful thing about this article is the fact this is how our country treats LGBT people and their children.  Being fairly familar already with most of the issues discussed here, I was horrified to find that it was even worse than I was originally aware.  I understand that people have very passionate views about this topic and that a more liberal view may not always make me popular, but, at the very least, WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!  I suppose that's exactly why we're here.  It just angers and concerns me greatly that because some people disagree with other people’s way of life, we punish the children.  Just because some people don’t like that Susie has two mommies, if Susie’s biological mother dies, we put Susie in the hands of the state rather than with her other parent.  However, these are Laura’s views.  Laura-the-future-teacher realizes that, until things change, I have to figure out what I realistically can do to help my students in these situations.  It’s the same with the issue of immigrants.  I have to realize how these things can affect the students, pay attention, listen and be supportive and caring.  This leaves Laura-the-future-teacher feeling a bit helpless. This brings us to the “Human Rights” article on multiculturalism, which was relevant to both of these Hot Topics. In addition to paying attention and caring, this article inspires me to not only value diversity myself but also to create a classroom that does the same. There's a trend beginning on how to create the classroom as a safe space; there's certainly a lot that teachers must consider when trying to create this space. All of these factors can lead to stress for students; we must watch for these stressors, understand how they can affect students' academic performances and help students overcome the stressors to whatever extent we are able.

Reflective Response 1: Physical Development

The readings this week were about physical development; so I was not surprised to read quite a bit about puberty.  There were, however, a few things within the readings that did surprise me a bit and made me think about a few less expected things.

The pages from “Developing Adolescents: A Reference for Professionals” were mostly expected but still very informative.  A line in the preface caught my attention right off the bat when is stated that there is not a set definition of adolescent since it can be defined by factors such as age, development etc..  While this is something that sounded familiar, immediately upon reading it here, I realized how important it is to remember this when thinking about adolescents and their development.  Adolescence is such a transitional period for children; it is not clearly defined because children develop at such different times and rates.  Adolescence is the epitome of liminality; once in adolescence, children are not exactly children anymore but they are not yet adults either. It is easy to understand how this ends up being a very confusing time for both the children and the adults around them. 

The information on the actual physical changes and normative ages and rates of changes were interesting to review as a whole.  I was not surprise to read in conjunction with this section about body image, promoting positive body image and warning signs of negative body image and possible problems related to negative body image. Most of the body image section seemed pretty standard and what I expected to read: promoting healthy eating and activity and find the positives about one’s self.

“The Guy’s Guide to Body Image” was a great read.  I was happy to see a site developed for teenage boys that addressed body image and acknowledged the pressure to emulate the media’s depiction of what a guy ‘should be.’  There was definitely some good information here and in the Palo Alto Medical Foundation’s site that would be beneficial to a teacher trying to help male students adjust and understand puberty.  However, the Palo Alto Medical Foundation’s information on puberty and physical changes to females gave me pause twice. The first time I paused was to laugh at the Latin etymology to the word adolescent; I had to wonder if knowing that adolescence comes from a word meaning ‘hairy’ or ‘mossy’ would really make a child feel better about the experience. However, I suppose it could make a child laugh or better understand that becoming ‘mossy’ is normal.  Either way, I found it to be an interesting fact to have included. 

The second time I paused was with slight indignation.  I was dumfounded that the Palo Alto people would even dare to mention plastic surgery, even in passing, on a site about puberty that is clearly directed towards adolescents.  I understood the decision to include a line that states that there is no way to increase the size of your breasts, but could they not have just stated that there was no way to increase the natural development of your breasts rather than including with line about ‘without plastic surgery?’  They did have a disclaimer that plastic surgery is not always a healthy or safe option, but to even bring it up at all plants the idea in young girls’ minds.  On the boys’ site, they were able to say that there was no way to increase your penis size without any mention of unnatural interventions.  I feel very strongly that even mentioning plastic surgery at all in this particular medium is sending the wrong message. Teachers, medical professionals, etc. should all be encouraging children to accept and love their bodies.  I am not in any way saying that we should shame the field of plastic surgery, but I am suggesting that it should not even be part of the puberty conversation with children.

I was not quite expecting the content found in the article on sexual orientation.  However, I appreciated its message and goals very much.  Clearly, this is a ‘hot topic’ within the education community and beyond.  I appreciated that this article boils down to two reasons why some people attempt to ‘convert’ or ‘fix’ homosexuality: believing it is a mental illness and believing that it is a sin.  It makes clear that homosexuality is not a mental illness and that religious conversion and pressuring is not allowed in public schools.  Since we can disprove that homosexuality is a mental illness and we all know that religion is not allowed to be forced upon students within public schools, it would almost seem that we can keep the idea of ‘conversion’ of homosexuality out of the classroom.  I felt that the goal of this article is valuable but only scratched the surface of what I will need as a teacher to deal with issues of sexual orientation within the classroom.  This article made me begin to think more deeply about how I can create a safe and tolerant classroom.  I have done some digging but I still feel fairly inept to deal with this issue; perhaps we all feel that way, because it is such a volatile issue. I did find good information for teachers on making the classroom a safer environment here: http://pride.lusu.ca/pdf/Educators/safe_classrooms.pdf

The article “Recognizing Healthy and Unhealthy Sexual Development in Children” at different times made me uncomfortable, made me sad and even made me laugh a bit. Anyone who has been around small children any significant amount knows that children play, they are funny, and a healthy child does not understand sexual/sexualized things.  I have had many conversations with my sister about some of the things that my niece and nephews have done that made us both just shake our heads, because children explore the world and themselves.  These things are not sexualized or dirty.  However, I fully understand that as someone responsible for children, it is important to know what is normal and healthy versus what it a warning sign.  I found this information to be invaluable but also upsetting.  Truly it was not the article that was upsetting.  The mere thought of children being abused in any way is incredibly disturbing to me, which I suppose is a normal reaction.  This article was even more disturbing to me because I have had conversations with adults who were sexually abused as children; more than one of these adults described some of their behaviors as children that should have been warning signs to the people around them.  Sadly, none of the people who spoke to me about their experiences had spoken about these things as children; no one had seen the warning signs.  If I had a time machine, I would travel back for these people and try to protect them.  Since that is not an option, I am only that much more determined to protect the children around me now and in the future.  Since I will be teaching high school, some of the warning signs listed in the article are not relevant to the children I will be teaching.  However, I found some more good information here: http://www.livestrong.com/article/12505-sexual-abuse-incest/

All of the reading for this week was informative, but it also all just begin to delve into what we, as teachers, will need to know even on just the subjects presented.  Obviously, these are things that will take constant attention and education.  I felt like the information for today was also a great reminder of the infinite responsibilities of educators.