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.
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