All posts by Adam Virzi

Don’t Take it Personally

Creating Classroom Community

“Assuming the best is an underlying orientation that enables us to treat both our students and ourselves with respect and dignity. It helps us understand that when students act out, they are sending us a message that they want a positive connection. Then we can start to see “discipline moments” as opportunities for teaching an essential piece that students want to learn.” (Smith & Lambert, page 6)

Student misbehavior is something teachers will deal with in their career. However, some teacher in some schools deal with more and worse misbehavior than others. The tendency for teachers overwhelmed by students’ misbehavior is to perceive the misbehavior as an affront to him or herself, rather than as a result of something within the student. This is a toxic orientation for teachers to hold toward misbehavior, as it leads to a mindset where students and teachers are confrontational forces in the classroom. Such an orientation only worsens existing problems. Adopting Smith and Lambert’s orientation to misbehavior allows teachers to view disciplinary problems and disciplinary intervention in such a way where students and teachers are collaboratively working for growth while maintaining mutual respect and dignity. Continue reading Don’t Take it Personally →

Advocates Against Brain Drugs

Reaching Adolescents and How to Respond

“The ethical issues surrounding brain enhancement concern the social effects of brain enhancement: How will it affect the lives of all students, including those who may prefer not to enhance their brains?” (Philip, 185).

It is true that students who prefer not to enhance their brains will feel pressured through competition to participate in the use of such drugs. However, the ethical issue I am most concerned with is what will become of students who are too young/immature to make educated decisions about what is best for them. Teachers and parents will have to act as advocates for these children’s best interest. Continue reading Advocates Against Brain Drugs →

Generation after Generation

Friendship, Love, & Sexuality, Urban Adolescents

“I find parents to be truly funny. I’m sure they were wild and crazy – smoking weed, doing drugs, having sex – when they were our age, a lot more than dancing. I learned in my history class that 2,500 years ago, the ancient Greeks worried that their children would come to no good that they wouldn’t work, or marry. I guess human nature, or at least parents’ human nature, hasn’t changed over the centuries.” (Appleton, E.)

As this quote suggests, parents’ nature have not have changed over the centuries. However, the unspoken footnote to this quote is that at some point in our own lives, our nature changes over to that of a parent. How does this happen? How do people go from adolescents mocking their parent’s lame attitudes to being lame themselves? Colloquial knowledge insists “one day we’ll understand.” I agree that one day we’ll probably see things the same way, but this doesn’t mean we have come any closer to understanding why adult attitudes toward popular youth trends always seems to be stigmatizing and negative. If this has been happening for centuries, why isn’t there colloquial knowledge to help parents quell their natural skepticism for youth culture and give their kids the understanding and loving support they need to develop as healthy sexual adults? Continue reading Generation after Generation →

Reifying Socially Constructed Differences

Gender Socialization & Identities, Urban Adolescents

“Of course, as every teacher knows, each student is an individual. Although there are many similarities that researchers have observed among students with certain defining characteristics, such as gender, it is dangerous to oversimplify the issue. Not all boys are alike, nor are all girls alike. Wilhelm and Smith claim that the battle lines in the gender war are misdrawn because there are boys and girls on both sides. They write…”We categorize for the sake of argument, clarity, and for ease of thinking, but sometimes our categories cause problems and keep us from seeing the students before us” (Galley, 91-92) / “Who am I as a learner?” Would Girls and Boys Tend to Answer Differently?

When I came to the end of this reading and read this passage I let out a huge sigh of relief. When fueling discussions like “the gender wars,” it is of the utmost importance that authors step back from the issue and consider the tangible impact that such debates have on real students. In this passage, Galley shines a light on gender as social construct, reminding her readers that although there are measurable trends related to cognitive differences and school performance according to gender, these trends shouldn’t erase the complex humanity (of which gender is only a part) of individual students whom we deal with everyday. Continue reading Reifying Socially Constructed Differences →

Intercultural Learning Experiences

Newcomers & Perpetual Foreigners, Urban Adolescents

“Thus, because newcomer immigrant youth undergo profound shifts in their sense of self and are struggling to negotiate changing circumstances in relationships with parents and peers, positive school relationships can bridge the gap between home and school cultures and create important linguistic and cultural connections to the new society.” Page 63 of “Adolescents from Immigrant Families: Relationships and Adaptation in School” by Suarez-Orozco, Qin & Amthor.

As adolescents undergo immigration experiences they are divorced from aspects of the “predictable contexts” that defined their lives including, “community ties, jobs, customs, and (often) language,” as well as their many social relationships (p52). Immigrant students of adolescent age have begun the process of identity formation in response to these predictable contexts. Thus, the unpredictable contexts they experience in their receiving socio-cultural environment can be a jarring affront to the ongoing process of identity development. They become vulnerable to the many demands of these unpredictable contexts. Too often these demands center around assimilation, which is a subtractive approach to cultural adaptation demanding that an individual sacrifice important pieces of his identity. I see this manipulation of vulnerability toward assimilation as a social injustice and a crime against diversity.
In order to respond to this issue I offer the normative solution of implementing intercultural learning experiences at the high school level. Continue reading Intercultural Learning Experiences →