“If you clamp down on the social impulses of your students, you are pushing against a force of nature: the momentum of early adolescent development. Yet if you passively accept them, your classroom lapses into chaos.”

I chose this as my MVP for the week because it really resonated with me and my experiences of teaching 5th graders.  One of the biggest challenges I found while teaching was in learning how to balance both structure and spontaneity in a classroom where my students were all at varying in the process of identity development. The students in my 5th grade classrooms ranged in age, and consequently, maturity across a wide spectrum.  By the time we reached the end of the year, my students often ranged fro 10 to 13 years old. While some of the girls were still interested in imaginary games, others took interest in makeup and dating.  I noticed boys become particularly interested in maintaining an image and all students seemed to place big importance in forming friendship circles.

As the authors pointed out, many of my students did seem to be using the school setting as a way to test out their identities. One of the most valuable lessons I found was one that allowed my students to really feel out their strengths, as well as represent and form their identity.  Each year my students created a video project led and designed mostly on their own.  As a class we would decide on a theme and collaborate to create guidelines and assign roles to make sure everyone was included.  They would then work in small groups to create their own segment that would contribute to the class project as a whole. One year they created a news show with each group being responsible for a different segment like Sports, Entertainment and Local News. The following year they did a Songs in Real Life recap of our school year.  The projects were always a huge success and I believe this is largely in part to the ability they had to represent their own personality. They were able to use their own unique interests to create a product they could take ownership of.

One of my former students left a comment on his classes video that reaffirms the impact teachers can have by recognizing and helping students figure out who they are. He wrote, “I love this video. I did not have a lot of friends, but this makes me happy because it shows I am a funny guy. I’ll never forget it, Miss Rodriguez!” 😆