Texts: Berk, L.E (2002) Infants, Children and Adolescents (4th ed).

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Essay Question ONE
Stress in Adolescents

 Stress is the "wear and tear" our bodies go through as we adjust to our constantly changing environment. Anything that causes change in our lives causes stress.  It can be short-term or long-term.  The adolescent years are among the most stressful times in a person's life. Adolescence is the time of life when children change into adults. They are going through puberty, meeting the changing expectations of others, and coping with feelings that may be new to them.  Adolescents are between stages. They have more responsibility and freedom than they did as children.  However, they have less responsibility and freedom than adults do. Their thoughts, behavior, and social relations are all changing radically. The rate of change varies from person to person.
 There are a number of reasons for an adolescent to feel stress.  These are stresses that have been common in the past as well as common today.  They include: problems with peers, family issues or problems with parents, school-related problems or pressures, death of a loved one, moving to a new home (changing schools), injuries or severe illness, child abuse or sexual abuse, family or community violence, taking on too many activities, having too high expectations, family financial problems, and natural disaster.
 However, today there seem to be more than these standard stresses piling up on our students shoulders.  Many students today feel the stress of the American society has a whole.  Image.  Girls in particular often stress about looking and dressing a certain way.  The images they see in magazines and on television which did not exist years ago make them think that they need to be what they see on TV, when this just isn't the reality.
 Also, it seems like teens today are more pressured in the way of school.  They are expected to do more and perform just as well.  They are expected to be in school eight hours a day plus do homework at night. True that this hasn't changed, but in the past there were less extracurricular and involvement.  Stress can also come from the pressure to win that next game or not miss any lines in the school play.  College is a must now for most careers, and most students are pressured to go (and most want to go).  They rely heavily on their grades and stress about low ones.  Applying for colleges and hoping that they are "good enough" can add much stress to teens their junior and senior years of college.
 Finally, we see much more sexual activity in teenagers now then in the past.  This goes for relationships as well.  The possibility of an unwanted pregnancy, the peer pressure to have sex in the first place and break-ups all add to the many stresses that teens face daily.
 Bronfrenbrenner mentions that all creatures who live share some common characteristics.  One of those is that we all feel stress.  In the Microsystems (where the teen experiences and creates their own reality), stresses may come from working, loving and playing.  Many students have to keep a job at the same time they are trying to do schoolwork.  Loving has already been touched upon.  Playing could actually be a relief from stress, but what if playing incorporate pressure from friends to do drugs or drag race?  Stress can also occur if the parent-child control factor is not equal.  When parents don't bend or teens take over, a stressful environment results.  Also, parents who do not pay enough attention to their child in general can also create stress for their teen.  The Mesosystem (relationships between microsystems, such as the relationship between work and school) also creates stresses.  Simply, if the student does not have a strong Mesosystem, stress can result and teens can become at-risk.  Exosystem stresses are those which effect the teens life, but the teen has no control over them.  For example, if the father gets a new job in a new town, the family must move.  This highly effects the life of the child, but at the same time the child can do nothing about it.  The Macrosystem is the relation between humans and the rest of the world.  Stress can come from such sources as society, racism, politics and world events.
 Elkind has many stresses that are similar to Bronfrenbrenner.  Type A, foreseeable and avoidable danger, is much like Bronfrenbrenner's double bind.  It seems that today more people put themselves into these kinds of situations than in the past.  Type B stresses such as accidents and illness will always be around.  Type C are foreseeable and unavoidable.  The big stressor teens face today in this category is tests.  As mentioned above, much emphasis is put on receiving high grades.  This is much like Bronfrenbrenner Exosystem.
 Helping adolescents realize that they are important members of society can ease a great deal of their stress. They need help to find out where they belong. Ways that adults can help adolescents cope with stress include: encouraging them to talk about what they are going through without being judgmental, avoiding remarks that minimize problems, like "you'll get over it," offering reassurance, encouragement, and support continuing to provide structure, stability, and predictability, encouraging participation in activities they normally enjoy, trying to build a relationship so they feel comfortable asking for help when they need it and modeling effective coping skills by talking about how to deal with problems and cope with difficult situations.  Also, it may be effective to advise them to avoid too many changes at once and to set reasonable goals for themselves.
 Many changes could be in my aspects to reduce the stress of teens.  Television could have a more realistic view, teachers could be required to give out only 15-20 minutes of homework per day, families who don't get along could be required to go for counseling, drugs could show up less and less in schools, teens could not have to work and go to school at the same time, and college couldn't cost so much money.  All of these are changes that need to be made, but in reality these are changes that will probably never be made.  Everyone has stress.  Most crisis's cause stress (and to some teens, even a broken fingernail is a crisis), as do life's normal ups and downs. It is impossible to live a stress-free life.  In fact, living a stress-free life may be damaging, because stress is what prepares us to handle things that are unfamiliar, or that appear threatening.

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Essay Question TWO
Chuck

 Chuck is passive and afraid to try.  His effort is futile and he has given up trying.  Students like Chuck develop self-defeating strategies which eventually lead to the very failures that they are attempting to avoid.  They strive for unattainable goals, they procrastinate, they accomplish only tasks that require little effort.  They become depressed and a form of depression in students is anger.  They feel they are "too stupid" to learn, so why try?  It hurts too much to try.  Chuck has learned helplessness.  Chances are that Chuck is listless, inattentive and sometimes disruptive. He probably does not complete much homework.  He might become anxious when the class reads allowed  or it is a test day.  I see it most every single day at my job as a teacher's aide.
 The missing component in educating students like Chuck is our lack of understanding why he doesn't want to learn.  Perhaps instead of so much praise and comfort (the student learning how to think positively about themselves is not the complete answer), it would be more wise to try to get at the heart of the problem.  A conference with Chuck and his parents about why he won't even try might help.  It is important to establish a non-threatening friendly environment.  There are many steps both parents and teachers can take to help: have Chuck gather all the evidence he can as to why what he says isn't true, try to make him see the number of causes for his way of thinking and have him pick the most changeable to work on at first, try to get him to really think about if his implications are true (he might just realize how illogical he's being).  Also, asking the student "who is in charge of how you think?" might have an effect.  If all else fails, it might be best to just take a deep breath and try again later.
 If the option of a conference isn't available, the next step is to try changes in the classroom.  First, I would to try might be doing more group work in the class.   Since Chuck seemingly likes to worth with peers and gains help from them, this could only benefit him.  Dreiker suggests many wonderful ideas, such as bringing a hobby from home into school (to show later to peers so that student can feel successful), and being extremely patient with the student.  I must admit it is very hard to do this when you are trying to help an entire class of students who have questions.
 One time, I was helping a student with learned helplessness with math.  I kept hearing "I don't know" over and over again, but I knew he could do the problems.  To avoid working on them, he started asking me questions about myself.  I offered to answer it if he would finish up that next problem.  His desire to ask me more questions became his motivation for that class period.  True, you couldn't base an entire school year of off small rewards like this, but again, it might work well as a last resort when the frustration level gets too high.  The reward could be food or something else of the like.
 This behavior is probably the only one that logical consequences does not apply to.  Chuck doesn't seem to want to try, so the logical consequences would be he would sit in class and do virtually nothing, and fail.  As a teacher, I just couldn't let that happen without trying to help him.
 It may be that Chuck rattles off "I don't know" as a defense to get out of doing anything.  I've come across students like I mentioned above, who do know, but they just don't care.  It's not too hard to spot, and if this was the case, I might consider the non-student status.

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Essay Question THREE
ADHD and Alice

 There are three types of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity disorder.  There are those students who are very energetic, who can't stay still or stay seated, and who are very impulsive.  The second type includes those students who do not or cannot pay attention to anything for a long period of time.  They are inattentive, and have a short attention span.  The third type of ADHD is a mix of the two.
 I am most familiar with the mix.  To be honest, I always thought being hyper and being inattentive came hand in hand, for I have worked with kids like this for so long.  For example, there was a student named Miqueas who I worked all the time with in math.  He would get up to sharpen his pencil time and time again, hang his head over his desk so it was upside down and look at the person in back of him, talk, throw things and partake in other various other classroom disturbances.  Usually, the teacher would try to help by letting him do problems on the board or sending him back to a study carrel to work with me.  Both myself and the teacher had quite a hard time getting him to pay attention.  One time I tried to tell him I knew he could do this if he would just concentrate and follow along with me.  He retorted, "I can't do this, it's not my fault cause I have disability."  He then threw down his pencil, got up, and started walking around the classroom.
 The case of Alice is very different.  I suspect she might have ADD and/or a learning disorder, and not ADHD.  I've come to this conclusion for these reasons: she is female, has trouble with math and writing, has no behavioral problems, has social skills problems being that she immature in that respect.  I might even go on to suggest that her specific learning disorder might be dyslexia.  It is common for those who have this to take longer writing, for the letters can often be jumbled in their head.  The same idea goes for numbers as well.  If Alice is the kind of person who likes to hand in good work, it might take her much longer than normal to write a couple of good sentences with correct spelling.  Perhaps her math mistakes are not careless, but she just does not realize she's mixed up the signs or numbers.
 Distinguishing ADD from the normal range of teen activity is difficult and requires the help of a trained professional.  However, if I suspected Alice to have ADD and/or LD, I would call her parents and mention what I suspect (not diagnosing the problem myself!).  I would also inform a school psychologist or social worker.  The process that Alice must go through then includes all of these steps: a medical exam, social development study, psychological evaluation, educational testing, These may tests ensure that Alice's symptoms do not derive from medical problems, substance abuse or emotional disorders.
 How can I help Alice and all other students with ADD in my classroom?  There are many ways.  I could establish a calm, structured classroom with regular routines and clear, consistent rules.  This does not mean there would never be a fun project, but I've learned from experience that students with ADD are usually most comfortable in classrooms where procedures, expectations, and limits are explicit.  The use of a study carrel like Miqueas used would come in handy.  It is also a good idea to seat these students close to where I would be conducting the class from.  This may help them contend with distractions.
 Giving very clear instructions is also a must.  Repeating directions a few times will give the ADD student more of a chance to catch what is going on.  I would also make sure all the students understood the directions they just heard.  If there is an all period assignment, I would break it up into smaller parts and simplify as much as I could.
 If you've ever looked into the backpack of a student who has ADD, you can tell they are usually high disorganized people.  Perhaps a few lessons or a small until on organization would benefit them.  At Addison Trail, each student has an assignment notebook.  I would make sure that this book was in use so they will remember important assignments.
 Technology can come in handy as well.  I would encourage students to do writing assignments on computers or word processors that have a spell-checking feature. Students can also use hand-held, computerized spellers. Of course, these aids should not replace good, comprehensive training in basic skills. However, for projects that emphasize content mastery, technology can be a very valuable tool! Students who can demonstrate their knowledge without worrying about spelling or handwriting (such as Alice) can feel pride in their accomplishment and enjoy a great boost in self-esteem.
 Finally, constant, specific encouragement is key.  I would be sure to tell my students how much I value them. For the case of someone with ADD, praise might be needed as well as encouragement.  I would praise and encourage all good behavior and outstanding academic performance or improvement in front of classmates or in private.
 

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Classroom Observation

 I have been observing in the classroom I am about to describe for much more than two hours.  I have been working as an aide there all year.  On the first day of my English 9 class, eighth period, I knew it was going to be a very easy-going democratic environment.  That first day, the teacher took out large pieces of paper and had the students get into groups of three or four.  The first assignment of the school year was for them to work in their groups to come up with sensible rules for the classroom.  At first, the rules were pretty reasonable.  Four hall passes a quarter (instead of three like most teachers use), being able to eat in class (given that wrappers wouldn't be all over the floor), and choosing where they could sit were among the most popular rules (other than sleeping, never having homework, or not coming to class at all, which of course weren't taken seriously).  What unit the class would start on was up to the students as well.  The teacher let them choose what novel they would read (from a list of about five choices).
 It is obvious that this class most definitly offered a sense of equality, respect for the students, and encouragement.  The teacher was never harsh about anything (even to the point of not really having any consequences, logical or otherwise).  The teacher was always there to help the students and did all she could to motivate them to do good work.
 Those first few days everything seemed to go pretty smoothly.  However, little by little, the class began to have more freedom, and the students began to pick up on just how much they could get away with.  Soon they were sitting by the windows and listening to their CD players during lecture, the headphones covering their ears.  This particular teacher was an advocate of both group work and silent alone work.  She never quite picked up on the fact that this was not functioning.  Silent work time became time to talk to friends, walk around the room, and throw things.  Group work also became time to socialize with friends.  It was extremely frustrating to say the least, and not much work was ever done by the students.  Ten minutes before the bell was to ring they would be lining up at the door ready to go.
 After a while of this, the teacher did try to implement some consequences, but to virtually no avail.  She would close the door so students would not line up, but they would just use the other door in the classroom.  She started writing more referrals, but yet again this action did not help very much if at all with the classroom situation.  By now it was February and the kids had had just too much freedom.  It was going to be hard to go back.
 Finally, about three weeks ago, the teacher put her foot down.  She told the class it was obvious that they could not function as a democratic society, and the class would now be a "dictatorship."  Good for her.  However, I can't help but wonder what took her so long to come to her senses.  Had I been teaching, I would of put my foot down back in October.
 I believe the problem is that this particular English class is very low track.  Over 90% of the kids have IEPs, and the teacher was not counting on this when she started.  She is not special education certified.  The reason I was in the class to start with was because I was a Special Education teacher's aide.  Many of the students in class have a learning disorder and/or ADD/ADHD.
 Believe it or not, I am now student teaching this class.  I've already started some lessons, and they are a lot less creative than I wish I could make them, but I know by now that this class cannot handle any freedom.  They still get away with things I'd rather not have them get away with, such as sitting by the windows or getting up before the bell rings, and I am working on these issues, but it has been very challenging to say the least.  After spring break I will have a points system worked out and a new seating chart.  All I can hope is that the situation gets better, even if it's little by little.
 My conclusion from all of this is that a democratic classroom is a wonderful idea, but you have to watch closely how it progresses.  Next year when I teach, I will let the kids decide some of the rules, such as eating, but I will also have to mandate policies such as not standing around the door ten minutes before the bell.  I will research the students and find out whether they have IEPs and if so, for what?  It's possible that one of my classes will have the privilege of being completely democratic while another one will not.  Just like this year, it should be easy to tell if freedom is going to work in a certain class after the first few weeks, perhaps even days.  It will be much easier to change the classroom style in this amount of time than it will be to change the classroom style after six months.
 

 Wish me luck!
 

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Group Activity ONE
Heinz Dilemma Experiment

  In Europe, a woman was near death from cancer.  There was one drug that doctors thought might save her.  A druggist in the same town had discovered it, but he was charging ten times what the drug cost to make.  The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he know to borrow the money, but he could only get together half of what it cost.  The druggist refused to sell it cheaper or let Heinz pay later, so Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's store to steal the drug for his wife."

Should Heinz have done that?  Why?

Results:

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Group Activity TWO
Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development
The Formal Operational Stage

Questions Taken by 7th Grade Students

1.  If A=B and B=C then C=?

2.  Is this statement true?  "All polar bears are white, and I am white, therefore, I am a polar bear."

3.  If Susan hits a tambourine, she will make a noise.  Suppose Susan did not hit a tambourine.  Did Susan make noise?

4.  Hide a red or green chip in your hand.  Ask the Adolescent to evaluate if the following statements are true or false: "Either the chip in my hand is green or it is not green." "The chip in my hand is green and it is not green."

5.  Is this a logical statement?  "If dogs are bigger than elephants, and elephants are bigger than mice, then dogs are bigger than mice."
 
 

Hypothesis:  Adolescents can evaluate the logic of propositions (verbal statements) without referring to real-world circumstances.

Questions:

A.  Is the hypothesis confirmed or denied?

Propositions 2, 3, and 5 seem to address this question more than 1 and 4.  Most of the students in 7th grade and the high school students said False to proposition 2, so that supports the hypothesis.  With proposition 3, there was more confusion, with only a few saying maybe.  Overall, they seemed pretty evenly divided between yes and no.  For proposition 5, most answered yes, which showed that they could separate the logic from reality, but some mentioned the reality just the same. Therefore, for the most part, I would say that the hypothesis is confirmed.

B.  What are some potential problems with Piaget’s theory?

I think the theory is too restricted to age.  In our study, for example, we see that some kids in 7th grade did well with all the propositions, while some of the high school kids had problems with several of them.  It seems likely to me that performance on these propositions is dependent upon prior experience as well upon age.  For example, kids who have taken math and science courses may be better able to theorize or think logically than kids who have not studied much or done well in those areas.  Also, this theory is really aimed at issues that require mathematical and/or scientific thought.  It doesn't allow for the relativistic nature of the world and the need to see things from different perspectives. And I think that the presumption that as kids mature into adults, they will automatically think like scientists or logical philosophers does not consider the way the world really is.

C.  How could you reinforce/improve formal operational thinking in your class?

In my experience, particularly with middle school kids, the kids have a strong tendency to take things literally.  In language arts, they miss nuances and humor because they read things so literally.  I think we can improve formal operational thinking by stressing the idea of thinking “outside the box.”  For example, in proposition 5, clearly the statement isn't true. But given the premise, it is a logical statement.  We can work with those kinds of statements and encourage students to look at an issue on its own merits, without any influence from other areas. Certainly in literature, there are many examples of writing which are unrealistic, such as science fiction or fantasy, and we need to encourage students to accept the premise of these writings.  I believe that math and science will automatically encourage formal operational thinking.  However, I do not believe that everything can be addressed in a logical way, so we need to be careful with this.

What about postformal thought?

I think we can certainly encourage this and try to move students in that direction.  It allows students to look at things from different perspectives and then draw their own conclusions.  We can do that easily with literary criticism, and I think that in history we can do so as well by asking the right kinds of questions.  In addition, we can work with kids and their personal relationships with peers, adults, etc., and show them the relativistic nature of those relationships.  Last week, we discussed the stressor that kids face, and clearly many of those are highly relativistic.  If we work to help students handle those kinds of stresses, we will encourage postformal thought.

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Group Activity Three

A)  How is self-esteem related to children and adolescents who display mastery-oriented attributions and those who display learned helplessness?

 Erikson explains that the interplay between parent expectations and children’s struggle for mastery set the stage for adolescent conflict.  Children gather their impression of their quality of self from their experience with family, peers and teachers.  The discovery of self is derived from evidence of mastery or inferiority.  Self worth is often based on academic achievement, social relationships, athletic performance and quality of physical aesthetics compared to peers.
 Students attribute themselves to be the responsible factor for results if they are mastery-oriented.  Even when negative results occur, they relate those results to factors within their control.  By contrast, students who have learned helplessness believe their poor results are due to their lack of ability, the manifestation of their low self-esteem.  They have certainty that their ability is fixed and change is beyond their control, as they perceive themselves as inferior to others.
 

B)  How do parenting styles influence a mastery-oriented attitude vs. a learned helplessness as well as Marcia’s "Four Identity Statuses"?

      Style                                 Erikson                            Marcia
Authoritarian                    Learned Helplessness         Identity Foreclosure
Permissive Indulgent          Learned Helplessness         Moratorium
Erratic Neglectful              Learned Helplessness         Identity Diffusion
Authoritative                   Mastery-Oriented              Identity Achievement
 
 

C)  As a teacher, how can you help your students increase their self-esteem and, therefore, develop better coping skills so they can deal more effectively with the stress and pressures in their lives?

 As teachers, we should be cognizant that we play a pivotal role in the lives of every child we teach and it is our duty to extend ourselves as much as we can to “do no damage” to our charges.  In fact, we may be in a unique position to really help as adolescent having turmoil if we are equipped and sensitive enough to respond.
 What can we do?  Often teachers can sense when a student is anxious about things.  At their stage, adolescents can be affected and distracted by many things. Grades, peer concerns, family problems are all highly ranked in the world of the adolescent.  Teachers should monitor the difficulty and amount of homework, concentrate on emphasizing learning for the joy of it more than for the grade associated with it.  Alternative types of assessment can do wonders for class morale and reinforcing the value of authentic learning.
 Students need to not only express themselves, but they should be encouraged to raise their voices toward social justice.  They should be invited as special guests to the world of activism.  In this, they will gain a role to play in the universe and acquire confidence in coming forward for justice.  This also leads to another means for reducing stress, properly equipping students with the problem solving skills they will be required to use in their lifetimes.
 Our world, dynamic as it is, will be faced with numerous problems.  It is incumbent on educators to instill the positive and constructive mindset to enable and empower students to meet humanity’s challenges. Knowledge about stress reduction will be a key to finding future success.
 

D)  Why do Erikson’s and Marcia’s theories apply only to North American and perhaps most western cultures and how are they gender biased?
 

 An examination of both theories reveals that both are based upon an individualistic rather than a collectivistic approach.  With Erickson, for example, we see the focus on issues such as learned helplessness and mastery-orientation, both clearly individualistic in nature.  At the same time, we see that Marcia focuses on issues such as Identity Foreclosure and Identity Achievement.  With both of these theorists, we see that all issues are involved with the concept of  "self," and that is clearly individualistic.  As we look at cultures, we see that North America, and to some extent western culture in general, is individualistic, so we can safely infer that their theories apply only to North America and perhaps most western cultures.
 Because these theories apply to North America, they are, by default, gender biased.  In North America, parental and societal standards for males and females are different.  We have different objectives for the sexes as well as different values for them.  Society treats members of each gender differently.  As a society, we are still struggling with the concept of gender equality.  As children move into adolescence, males and females experience different kinds of issues, so each gender will develop sense of self differently. It seems apparent that the theories of Erickson and Marcia do not address those differences.  At the same time, we understand that most, if not all, of the subjects used by these theorists during the development of their theories were male. Since we know that we cannot apply the same theories to males and females, given the differences imposed by our society, we can safely presume that the theories really apply only to males.
 

E)  Define identity, self-esteem and self-understanding in your own words.

Identity
 During adolescence, students start thinking about themselves in new ways.  They think about a sense of self-unity and the fact that who they are or who they choose to be will continue over time.  Most important, teens use idenitity to help themselves feel like a unique person.  Be it the way they dress, the music they listen to, the clothing they wear, or the way they act, teens find countless ways to express themselves and let everyone around them know they they indeed have their own established identity.  Puberty also plays an active role in helping teens to establish their identity.

Self-esteem
 Self-esteem is how good a teenager feels about him or herself.  Do they like themselves?  Do they like what they see in the mirror?  Are they positive about who they are?  There are two major factors that influence the level of self-esteem in teens.  They are physical attractiveness and peer acceptance.  Attractiveness is particularly important for girls, and more girls seem to suffer from low self-esteem than boys.  Although these two top the list, self-esteem can also be gained from performing well in school, sports and the like.  Unfortunatly, low self-esteem can lead to many problems for teens, including depression and even suicide.

Self-Understanding
 This is when an adolescent understands who he or she is, as the name implies.  Interests, values, skills, likes and dislikes, and strengths are just a few examples of what teens might think about if they were to question if they understood themselves.  Self understanding is difficult to accomplish for any person, let alone teens.  The world is a complicated place, and thus, we are complicated people.  Few people every truly achieve self-understanding.  You must unlock your core self, understand where your most personal conflicts derive from, and use wisdom to help heal emotional wounds.