The Pressures on Adolescence Today - Term Paper Example

What are the social pressures placed on middle school and how do these pressures effect their performance in the room Given these results, what strategies can educators implement to help promote better student relationships and reduce social pressures on students Introduction The pressures on adolescence today For millennia human beings have lamented the state of their youth. But it is clear that adolescent students in today's schools do face a number of perhaps unique challenges in gaining a proper education. The first of these challenges is the lack of public funding for schools, with wide disparities in the quality of education offered according to the wealth (or otherwise) of the school district involved. A child going to a wealthy, comparatively safe suburban school will receive an infinitely better education than one unlucky enough to be attending a poor inner-city school. The best and most experienced teachers tend to graduate towards the best schools, while inner city schools often have the most inexperienced educators. Together with the lack of resources and often poor teaching skills in low-income schools, there are also discipline problems. While violent incidents at suburban schools such as Columbine High School make headlines, there is a constant stream of violence occurring at many inner-city schools. The appearance of metal detectors, armed police officers patrolling the corridors and a general siege mentality is not conducive to a sound education. If a child is worried about her safety at school it is unlikely for her to learn very much. A cycle of poverty continues as many students in low-income school become parents and those children in turn continue with within the same system. What is adolescence In advanced Western countries, most notably the United States, adolescence is an ill-defined period between the freedoms of childhood and the responsibilities of adulthood. There is a slow development from dependency to independence, and from accepting the views of adults to establishing a personal point of view. (Lindsay, 1983). It must be noted that in the United States adolescence appears to be an invention of the last century. (Raphael, 1988) In most non-Western countries cultures use "puberty rites", which may be loosely termed initiation ceremonies, to formally mark and symbolize the transition from childhood to adulthood. But in Western countries, as they transformed from being agricultural based economies in which children had an important economic function within the family to industrial societies in which education far beyond puberty was necessary, the "adolescent" was born. Simply defined, an adolescent is a person who is going/has gone through puberty, but who has yet to take on the responsibilities of the adult world. An adolescent is, in the eyes of the world, a child trapped inside an adult's body. It is the contradiction between these two roles - adult and child - that has caused many scholars to characterize adolescence as a time of "storm and stress". The psychologist Erik Erikson, whose Childhood and Society (1950) has become something of a standard work on human development, identifies "Eight Stages of Development", of which 'Adolescence' is the sixth stage. Erikson argued that identity versus role confusion is the psychosocial crisis faced by the person at this time, and that the predominant social settings are peer groups and out-groups. The favorable outcome of this crisis and setting is that "the individual develops an ego identity - a coherent sense of self." (Erikson, 1950) This is a very useful model for the teacher to understand, as it covers the main problems and strengths of this age-group. Too much stress on the gloom of the former over the brightness of the latter leads many educators to see the pedagogy of this age-range as merely a matter of avoiding crisis rather than engendering positive development. During adolescence human beings are motivated strongly by the desire to initiate and maintain relationships on a group level. (Juvonen, 2001) They are also motivated, as Erikson suggested, by the need to identify "out-groups" that can be systematically removed from social conversation and activity within and outside of school. These out-groups may be actual groups of teenagers, but are more likely to be loners who are perceived "not to fit in." As Lindsay suggests, the role of the teacher is to provide a secure emotional base for all these children. (Lindsay, 1983) This involves creating a protective environment in which opportunities for independence can occur within the context of socialization. If allowed to continue and deepen through middle school, the social pressures on isolated students may compound themselves in the more anonymous, larger high school. The results of this can be, although these cases are thankfully rare, catastrophic as the massacre at Columbine High School tragically showed. More often, these early social problems lead to isolated and unhappy adults. The problem with defining adolescence, together with how adolescent children should be taught, is a part of a wider dilemma within American education, and one that is essential to this discussion. What is the purpose of education Is it, as it increasingly has seemed to become, designed to produce as high standardized test-scores as are possible If so, then the problems of peer pressure and the resulting anti-social, self-destructive and possibly dangerous behavior that may result should be assigned to a place of distinctly secondary importance: class management. If a child conforms to the system (whether voluntarily or with indifference or with seething hostility), then he is satisfactory. If she does not, then her behavior should be changed, and if conformity still does not occur then she should be removed to the wasteland of the alternative school. The approach outlined above is has quite a long history, and dates from a time in education when children were meant to conform absolutely or face the, often physically painful, consequences. (Cole, 1965) Education has since seen a revolution, in terms of pedagogy, measurement of results and expected outcomes. II. What Social Pressures do Middle School Children Face These can be divided into several basic categories: Peer pressure to smoke cigarettes Peer pressure to skip school Peer pressure to use drugs Peer pressure to have sex Peer pressure to drink alcohol The tendency to lump all perceived "aberrant behavior" into the category of "peer pressure" is somewhat tempting, but perhaps misleading. For example, the use of cigarettes, drugs and alcohol may also depend upon the home environment, parental attitudes and how available these products are to the adolescent. The individual student may wish to skip school because he/she finds classes either too difficult or too easy. While having the same outcome, these two very contrasting reasons for skipping school need to be dealt with differently. Sexual behavior may be caused by peer pressure, but may also be more closely linked to the fact that biologically a person is 'designed' to start having sex at puberty. As Lindsay has suggested, emergent sexuality and massive changes in hormone production may lead to problems in the classroom (Lindsay, 1983), but they may also trigger sexual behavior. Returning to Erikson, the "problem" of teenage sexuality is largely invented by society rather than being inherent within the teenager. In non-Western societies, and in the West before the Industrial Revolution, individuals commonly got married and had children in their teens. Now limits, essentially arbitrary in nature, are set upon teenage sexuality: it is seen as driven by "peer pressure" because it supposedly belongs along with other aberrant behavior. If adolescent sexual behavior were seen as healthy (as it is in many Scandinavian countries), then "peer pressure" might be regarded as the natural biological tendency to experiment with various types of potential mate, rather than a problem to be tackled. Peer pressure, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. In his ground-breaking series of books about "Horace", Theodore Sozer has identified many of the problems associated with peer pressure within the school system as a whole. He writes: . . . adolescents gain much of their education outside school. They will spend more time with Richard Nixon at Nixon then they will in class. The hear more and experience more in the street, on a job, at home from the television, from the computer in the school. Horace engages his classes in conversations that are profoundly influenced by the talk of the street and over the air and via the telephone lines. . . the video arcade and the Internet count, big time. Against them, Horace has a struggle. (Sizer, 1996) While Sizer is mainly concerned with the High School, the same can now be said of Middle Schools. Indeed, the power and influence of the Internet has grown exponentially since Sizer published his book in 1996, and the talk of "video arcade" seems almost Dickensian in its age. The average adolescent now has access to more information (or distractions, depending on one's definition) than any human beings who have ever lived. Much of the world's knowledge, information, argument, art and hatred is to be found on the Internet. The 21st Century adolescent can now play video games of such hypnotic realism that a Kray supercomputer could not have created a similar experience just twenty years ago. But should the imaginary teacher "Horace" see his role as essentially engaging in a "struggle" against these forces, as Sizer suggests If he does, then surely the struggle has a foregone conclusion of defeat. In contrast, if he regards these outside influences, which may all be regarded, in the widest and most sensible definition of the word, as "peer pressure" as a learning opportunity then the students may benefit greatly. The almost ubiquitous access to pornography that many adolescent boys indulge in on the Internet can be ignored, have its existence denied or frowned upon as a taboo that needs to be stamped out. None of these responses seems likely to help the boys in understanding that the view of sex presented by online pornography is laughably inaccurate at best, and emotionally damaging at worst. Unfortunately, few school districts would sanction discussion of pornography in the classroom (or even its effects), but easy and open access to a deluge of if may clearly be effecting the sexual practices of a whole generation of adolescents. III. What effects do these pressures have in the classroom If adolescence is seen as a dangerous time, than students must find some goal for themselves, as resistance to such a goal can lead to involvement in "high-risk" behavior. (Letendre, 2000) As already stated, emergent sexuality and hormones may lead to sexual behavior that is perceived as damaging, and it may also directly effect the child's behavior in the classroom. Marked mood swings become more common, and become linked to fluctuations between childish and adult behavior. Many adolescents are more moody and subject both to "periods of misery" and to clinical depression than at any other time in their lives. (Lindsay, 1983) Peer pressure may accentuate these problems as the teenage feels the need to make his/her actions more extreme to fit in with the general feeling of rebellion that may pervade the classroom. The adolescent is involved in an effort to establish a self-identity and independence (see Erikson, 1950). This may involve not only challenging parents, but also the teacher in the classroom. One essential factor that may constantly appear within the classroom is the fact that most adolescent students feel on almost desperate need to "belong" that the adult teacher may find difficult to comprehend. (Nichols, 2006) Empathy with another's experience is perhaps at the heart of any successful human interaction, and it is especially important for a teacher. But the self-confident adult may have difficulty, or may not actually want to, remember when they were a vulnerable adolescent. Empathy with this experience is essential to understanding how peer pressure can influence classroom behavior. Nichols uses the word "belongingness", and defines this as "a psychological construct found throughout the psychological and educational literature . . . in psychology, belongingness is often viewed as a fundamental human need." (Nichols, 2006) This need is acutely felt by the adolescent, who is moving from the primary sense of social belonging of childhood: the family, to the more complex (and less certain) belonging that occurs in the wider world. It is this lack of certainty that makes the need for belonging so important to the adolescent. An individual may act in manners totally against his innate nature, in manners that he finds unacceptable or even repellant, if it assures him at least temporary membership of a social group that implies "belonging." (Erikson, 1950) It is particularly important because it affects the degree of motivation in school. (Nichols, 2006) If a group sees working hard at academic work as somehow a weakness then it is likely that an individual who has become part of that group will act accordingly. However good their work has been in the past it may drastically deteriorate under the influence of the group. (Olweus, 1978) An interesting, more optimistic interpretation of this tendency can be gained by encouraging group pressure to do well academically. If that can occur then a very positive form of peer pressure may be developed. IV. What types of students succumb to these pressures Identification of at-risk adolescents is the first step towards providing a suitable classroom environment for them. The pattern of peer pressure is as complex as all human reactions, and so generalization is risky. However, certain patterns have been identified. It must initially be stated that all human beings are susceptible to "peer pressure" because it is involved with the very basic human need to belong that has already been identified. Some character traits and personal experiences may make an individual peculiarly vulnerable, but these variances are a matter of degree rather than kind. In general, one individual in a peer-group determines the rest of the groups' actions. For example, if the leader of the group starts taking drugs, he will introduce it to other members. Those other adolescents are likely to try the drugs. The students that tend to succumb to these pressures are characterized by their anxiety, insecurity and low self-esteem. Interestingly, they may also be physically weaker and generally non-aggressive. (Olweus, 1978) The basic mammalian trait of having a dominant leader within a group who is followed by more subservient members is at work here. (Britannica, 1991) Adolescents who are unfortunately involved in the tragedy of a broken home and an unhappy family life may be particularly prone to extreme forms of peer pressure. The development of the "gang" in many schools located with low socio-economic neighborhoods with a high rate of broken homes has been well-documented over a number of decades. (Bourgois, 1995) The gang that an individual joins may become a surrogate family, giving him the most basic sense of belonging that he has never enjoyed before. Gang identity can (and often does) make its way into schools, and provides a profound challenge for both the teacher faced with it in the classroom and the administrator attempting to deal with it at an institutional level. A teacher within a middle school who faces students who have a gang affiliation will have a perhaps impossible situation. Gangs can take on children as young as eight (Bourgois, 1995) in order to have loyal 'soldiers' in the future, and because children this young are essentially beyond the reach of the law. If they are caught committing crime they are normally released with few if any consequences. The gang is perhaps the ultimate example of peer pressure, and schools can become essentially extensions of a war-zone between rival groups. While this mostly occurs at the high school level, increasing gang activity in middle-schools is also occurring. (Bourgois, 1995) The classroom teacher faced with this problem should refer the matter up the school hierarchy, because a single teacher cannot and perhaps should not (due to issues of personal safety) address the problem as an individual. V. What can be done to reduce social pressures and promote better relationships First, careful structuring of the classroom and social relationships in order to support entry into other clubs, activities and the establishment of new friendships. The important factor here is to provide genuine, natural and meaningful alternatives to the peer group rather than artificially removing the individual from the group without providing another social structure. To deal with sexual pressures, sexual education should be taught and emphasized so the adolescents can make better decisions when it comes to intercourse and oral sex. (McKay, 2004) An important factor to consider when dealing with problem sexual behavior is the veracity of the reports and the actual effect it is having on the children. As McKay puts it, "the more level-headed among us may ask whether all the talk about oral sex among teens reflects a recent major shift in adolescent behavior (i.e. 'a new teen sexual revolution') or an example of unwarranted media induced anxiety, or a combination of both." (McKay, 2004) While the problem of a national hysteria regarding adolescent sex in general, and oral sex in particular, is perhaps not the direct responsibility of the middle school teacher, she should understand the milieu in which the adolescent and his peer group are interacting. The teacher should have a firm, calm foundation in the reality of the situation rather than becoming too involved in rumor and innuendo. (McKay, 2004) Controversy exists surrounding whether sexual education should be taught using absolute moral standards or whether the adolescent should be left to create their own sense of morality. The matter seems somewhat academic as the latter occurs whichever pedagogy is used. The school should be concerned not necessarily with the type of morality developed by the students, but rather that they become responsible and consistent adults who care about other people and treat them justly. Essentially ethical education could concentrate on the Golden Rule of treating others as you would wish to be treated yourself. The teacher must avoid the potentially 'religious' element of this message in favor of a more general ethical approach. As already mentioned, the tendency for groups to a have single influential leader can be brought to bear on the problem. If the leader can be persuaded (perhaps through an appeal to greater authority for him/her self) to change the basic ethos of the group to one in which academic work and/or social responsibility are valorized rather then demonized, then great benefits may accrue. This might seem a somewhat unlikely scenario in most schools, but it can be effective if the teacher believes that the students are capable of change. VI. What are the implications for teachers It is clear that a teacher cannot teach a class of students until they have established a basic social relationship with those students. The teacher should, in the first classes of the year, try to find out how the students perceive their present life, their future and the biological/psychological changes that are currently occurring to them. (Letendre, 2000) The basis for this communication is trust, without trust based upon mutual respect and listening, it is unlikely that the teacher will be able to manage and teach the class on anything but a coercive basis. A careful balance needs to be made between the teacher becoming essentially part of the class, or the students' "friend" (both of which will probably lead to chaos and a lack of learning) and being a remote, aloof and essentially unreachable figure that merely imparts information. (Sizer, 1996) here innate charisma and the "art of teaching", so difficult to define, and yet so easy to identify when a person sees it, comes into play. Part of the process of dealing with adolescent students in a more effective manner is to try to change the way that teachers think about the developing child. A consideration of adolescent-teacher relationships and a realization of the vital role a teacher has to play within adolescent development is a crucial ingredient to successful reform efforts. (Letendre, 2000) The school as a whole needs to help adolescent students to make sense of their observations and experiences, to ensure that there are no significant gaps in their knowledge so that learning acquired in all ways is eventually integrated into a coherent, consistent and mature perspective (Lindsay, 1983). A vital element of this process is to enable the students to bring their own life experiences, both positive and negative, into the learning process. This will have several advantages. First, it will make learning within the classroom relevant to the lives that the adolescents are actually leading, and second, it will validate those lives as something that is a part of a larger whole. The sense that so often occurs to a teenager:- that he or she is experiencing problems for the first time, and that they cannot be shared with others because of their uniqueness, is effectively countered by placing those problems within context. Thus, rather than preaching to students about social relationships and their potential dangers (whether they be drugs, sex or alcohol) the teacher should concentrate on asking the students what their actual experience of these pressure is. This is an example of what is termed student-centered learning (Holzinger, 2002) and it is as effective at this early age as within the college setting where it has become something of a buzz-word. Teachers of students who are presently at this younger age are often doubtful of the student-centered approach because the small-group and pairs discussion that it often entails may lead to classroom management problems, or perceived problems. The "loud" classroom produced by student-centered learning may appear chaotic at times, but if carefully controlled it can be seen that it just has an energy and an enthusiasm that does not exist in the ordinary classroom. A teacher must have already established the correct social interaction and understanding (Letendre, 2000) before such learning can take place. An essential element of establishing that social atmosphere within the class and between the class and the teacher is to make clear that students will have as much input into their learning as the teacher. Some students involved within peer groups may not have the emotional or social maturity to effectively take part in student-centered learning, but they can perhaps be taught to take part through gradually including them. Here the natural leaders that have been identified as being at the heart of the peer-pressure problem (Olweus, 1978) may actually have his/her energies channeled in a positive manner through using the natural energy and management abilities of such a person to set up a dynamic learning situation. For example, if the leader of a peer group is given the responsibility for both running and recording the results of a student-centered discussion of drugs or sex, then the group may be led into a self-examination that teacher-led pedagogy would never create. All human beings, and especially adolescents in search of opportunities to show their independence and to assert their growing sense of self-identity, are more susceptible to answers that come from themselves rather than those that are forced upon them from on high. (Erikson, 1950) VII Conclusion Adolescence is a vital point in any individual's life. While a subject of controversy within psychology, it does seem that the character and tendencies that are developed here are unlikely to be changed in adulthood in any significant manner. (Erikson, 1950). Anecdotal evidence from personal experience would seem to suggest the truth of this assertion. It is thus clear that more programs need to be implemented in schools to increase student awareness of the world around them and their place within it. Awareness implies an active exploration of the various pressures that are occurring around the student, as well as possibilities for positive achievements. The students should be made aware of the existence of peer pressure, not just through identifying it within their age-group, but by exploring how it affects all human beings in different ways. This type of awareness needs to be centered on the student: the definition of 'problems' in adolescence should not be defined by a teacher using a text-book, but should rather grow organically from the students' classroom discussions. They might talk of how parents, teachers, adults in general show examples of giving in to peer pressure. The teacher herself might talk of times throughout her life when peer pressure has occurred. The idea of sharing personal information with students is professionally problematic, but as long as the experiences are age-appropriate the benefits would seem to outweigh the disadvantages. Possible solutions to these problems can be similarly student-centered. It is possible, indeed likely, that a sizeable portion of the student population in any one class will not perceive the problems of alcohol, truancy, sexual behavior, smoking and illegal drugs as problems. These opinions should not be banned or discounted out of hand. They should be explored by the teacher with the students. This is especially effective when considering illegal drugs, the effects of which are often either misunderstood, down-played or completely ignored by adolescents. It is perhaps unfortunate that most school-boards, basing their actions upon the emotional, often uninformed opinions of a minority of vociferous parents rather than upon sound pedagogical research, create tough-sounding but often ineffective policies such as "Just Say No" to drugs programs or teaching absolute abstinence rather than safe sex. Character education should be an integral part of the curriculum in middle schools, but this does not mean that the "character" within students should be dictated by an absolute authority. Most human beings are capable of discerning charlatans, or those who claim to have the best interests of their audience at heart when in fact they are seeking to inculcate their own particular moral code. Adolescents seem peculiarly adept at this process. Preaching should, at all costs, be avoided. The Latin route of the word education is two words: ex (out) and ducere (to lead), and it would be wise for all teachers, as well as administrators and policy-makers, to remember this essential origin. The adolescent should be "led out" towards a caring and responsible morality and way of life. Part of this leading is most effective when it is done by the student him/herself, and they often lead one another better than they are led by a teacher. Of course, peer pressure may mean that the student is led in the wrong direction, but it must be emphasized that the most effective form of education is that in which the individual feels an essential part. Being lectured to rather than being treated as the adult that they (correctly or otherwise) regard themselves as often results in the student ignoring the advice and merely carrying along the same path. This also occurs when "character education" is scheduled for a once-monthly discussion of ethical issues as it often is in many school districts. This 'ethical set-aside' of time is often treated in a derisory manner by both students and teachers, and often invalidates the character-building that should be an integral element of the whole education process, rather than an afterthought. (Sizer, 1996) ________________________________________________ Works Cited Bourgois, Philippe. In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in the El Barrio. Cambridge UP, Cambridde: 1995. Cole, Luella. Psychology of Adolescence. Rinehart, New York: 1965. Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. 23, 1991. "The Mammals". Erikson, Erik. Childhood and Society. WW Norton, New York: 1950. Holzinger, A. "Student-Centered Learning Meets New Media: Concept and Case Study". Educational Technology and Society, 5 (4), pp. 160-172. 2004. Juvonen, Jaana (ed.) Peer Harassment in School: The Plight of the Vulnerable and the Victimized. The Guilford Press, London: 2001. Letendre, Gerald. Learning to be Adolescent: Growing Up in US and Japanese Middle Schools. Yale UP, New Haven: 2000. Lindsay, Geoff. Problems of Adolescence in Secondary School. Croom Helm, 1984. McKay, Alexander. "Oral Sex among Teenagers: Research, Discourse and Education." The Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality. Fall 2004, vol. 13. Nichols, Sharon. "Teachers and Students' Beliefs about Student Belonging in One Middle School." The Elementary School Journal. Chicago, Jan 2006. vol 106. Iss. 3; pg. 255. 18 pages. Olweus, Dan. Aggression in the Schools. John Wiley, New York: 1978. Raphael, Ray. The Men from the Boys: Rites of Passage in Male America. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln: 1988. Sizer, Theodore. Horace's Hope: What works for the American High School. Mariner Books, New York: 1996. Read More