Early maturers enjoy many social advantages because their superior height and advanced muscle development often provide success in athletics, greater leadership roles, and more popularity among peers and adults (Ge, Conger, and Elder 2001). Petersen (1987) reported in studies she conducted in the 1960s that early-maturing males were more successful at peer relations during middle and high school. These individuals excelled in athletics, demonstrated confidence in social situations, and became the school leaders. The studies showed, however, that when the late-maturing boys reached their thirties, they seemed to have a stronger sense of identity.
Social communication is a powerful capacity of the human. Personally, I would like to say the reason why I want to become an educator is because of the willingness to communicate with teenagers. In other words, I want to be part of my students’ community and recall the period of my adolescence as I backed through by the time machine. According to Brown and Knowles (2007), students’ cognitive and physical growth are interrelated. Regarding the school community, especially in a gym class, males are more tend to express the manliness by showing their specific athletics skills that they good at. Based on the experiences from my high school gym class, male students who good at playing basketball most likely welcomed by females based on the actions of running, talking, shooting (a basketball), or even posing which attractive. After reading this paragraph, one important thing that I realized which was the attention plays a significant role in communication. This way people feel engaged and satisfied the self-confidence which navigates them to the positive learning. If such psychological phenomena increase students’ performances, should we be more flexible in our class? Instead of students seating in the classroom, what can we change the principles or structures of a classroom? If that happens, then what is the point for students coming to school? In order to create a positive class environment, I believe the most intricacy problem is how should we design our classroom to satisfy both students’ needs and teachers’ goals.
Reference
Brown & Knowles (2007) Adolescent physical and cognitive growth; Chapter Two, page (10-36)
I completely understand your concern for guaranteeing attention to each student, which they can greatly benefit from in an academic environment. One thing I haver personally observed in my student teaching experience in a middle school so far has been giving students one-on-one attention, which can result in higher motivation and better understanding of each student’s interests and preferred forms of learning. I have also noticed that many students search for one-on-one help and direct affirmation from the teacher, which helps with their motivation. Of course, nowadays there are classrooms that have only one teacher assigned to teach 30+ students, which makes it practically impossible for each one to get one-on-one attention in the classroom. In my school, each teacher also holds office hours after school where students can freely walk in and go over assignments and concepts they may be struggling with, but some students choose not to go due to the lack of motivation felt after school hours.
All-in-all, this topic of personal attention is definitely one that should be further delved into in school systems and structures, especially with adolescent students.