Reading the 4 articles we had this past week for class really resonated with me about my own personal experiences of being an adolescent and how it was the most awkward time period in my life. When I read Brown and Knowles’s chapter called Understanding the Young Adolescent’s Physical and Cognitive Growth, I came across the blurb that said “write a few thoughts about how you felt about yourself during that time of your life.” And I can definitely say I was one of those girls who hit puberty the earliest out of all of my friends and it created a very dark time for me emotionally and physically. It was really hard for me to accept the changes I was going through at the age of 11.

I think when it got really bad for me as an adolescent was 7th grade. I hated everything about 7th grade from being the youngest and most vulnerable student at school to feeling completely insecure of myself as well as being withdrawn, shy and awkward with my physical looks. I was one of those at that age who wore braces, had glasses and as a security blanket use to wear a big oversized blue windbreaker jacket to cover up my physical changes because I hated how people gawk at me and felt really uncomfortable. I could definitely relate to the point made in the article where the teacher complained about all the students in her class wanting to go to the bathroom every 5 minutes so see what they looked like and the teacher finally brought it to the attention of the principal where the prinicipal decided to install a mirror in every classroom, so students didn’t feel the need to run and look at the themselves in the bathroom mirror and miss class because of it.

Being an adolescent and especially one who goes through puberty early like myself is a real struggle, but also for teachers and parents too in terms of how to make students not feel so alone and letting them know that they aren’t facing the whole world on their own. I truly believe it is important as middle school teachers to create that safe space within and out of the classroom and having a talk where it breaks barriers for example the label or the scissor activity games mentioned in Philip’s articles. I unfortunately never had that in my middle school where I felt safe enough and could go to my teachers if need be and I think that is something that has slowly been changing since I was a middle schooler.