All posts by Gia

Even rats have cliques!

Biological & Cognitive Development in Adolescence

My MVP for this week’s readings was from David Dobbs’ “Beautiful Brains” featured in National Geographic:

“Yet teens gravitate toward peers for another, more powerful reason: to invest in the future rather than the past. We enter a world made by our parents. But we will live most of our lives, and prosper (or not) in a world run and remade by our peers. Knowing, understanding and building relationships with them bears critically on success. Socially savvy rats or monkeys, for instance, generally get the best nesting areas or territories, the most food and water, more allies and more sex with better and fitter mates. And no species is more intricately and deeply social than humans are” (4).

 I appreciated (and laughed at) Dobbs comparison of adolescents to socially savvy rats and monkeys. Honestly, I feel like that is a pretty valid comparison. After all, he argues that adolescence can be interpreted as just another part of our survival instinct kicking in – it helps prepare us to leave the nest and take on risky situations in adulthood. Plus, Is there anything more animalistic than just wanting to fit in with the pack? And isn’t it true that the most successful members of adolescence – a.k.a. “popular” kids – receive many of the benefits that socially savvy rats and monkeys do? This tongue-in-cheek comparison is one of the reasons I liked Dobb’s piece.

Additionally, this passage speaks to a deeper understanding of why adolescents may do unthinkable things – fitting in. How one reacts to peer pressure determines a lot about the relationships they build. No one wants to be perceived as “un-cool” and therefore, to gain hopeful success, relationships are built this way. I remember doing certain things in high school that didn’t sit right with me, but all my friends were doing it so I believed that to keep these friends, I also had to participate. Educators would do well to remember that we probably all had an adolescent phase like this and that perhaps their students that are acting up are simply trying to find ways to fit in.

I strongly believe that this feeling doesn’t necessarily dissipate once we leave that adolescent phase, hence the creation of the term “FOMO” (fear of missing out). Sure, it gets easier to make your own path and find friends who are likeminded and won’t pressure you, but at the end of the day, I’d say most of us have that rat or monkey inside that’s constantly striving to be socially savvy.

The Perennial Millennials

Perspectives & History of Adolescence

The Johnson, Crosnoe and Elder article “Insight on Adolescence from a Life Course Perspective” really spoke to me, as I am a member of the famous, no-so-grown “millennial” age group.  What we now consider a successful trajectory is shifting from what was expected when I was in high school (a mere) 7 years ago. Johnson, Crosnoe and Elder report that “such changes, reflected in contemporary discussions of ‘extended adolescence,’ ‘delayed adulthood,’ and ‘emerging adulthood,’ have profound implications for what preparedness for adulthood now entails as well as what policies aimed at ‘successful’ transitions into adulthood need to address” (275). We are growing more accepting of people who take gap years before or during college, move back home after graduation or get a job in something totally different than what they studied.

I am all for this change.

I didn’t know what I really wanted to do with my life when I chose to go to small, expensive liberal arts college. Sure, I had fun and certainly learned things along the way but I didn’t necessarily set my self up for immediate post-grad success. I think high school students get a lot of pressure to have their lives figured out by the time they’re juniors so they can visit and apply to all the ‘right’ schools. And sure, some students have known since day one  what they want to be, but I think most of us had no concrete idea. So while this idea of “delayed adulthood” might sound like a lazy kid’s excuse to parents who just want their offspring to nail down a 9-to-5 and start a 401-K, I find it refreshing.

We need to address the fact that the job market has shifted drastically since the recession and it is still changing. We need to be real with high school students: just cause you went to a ‘good’ school doesn’t mean you’re definitely going to graduate with a job. Just because you graduated with an business degree doesn’t mean you have to work on Wall Street. With the boom of start-ups and the increase versatility of technology, all sorts of interdisciplinary jobs have been created. The “track” that students are expected to follow just got a lot more exciting, with pit-stops which could possibly lead to U-turns or other tracks entirely. We should be focusing on teaching tangible, always necessary life skills like how to prepare taxes or how to apply for loans alongside how to prep for the SAT, because being an emerging adult doesn’t always mean you have other experienced adults who can help you negotiate all that.

BDT FTW: Overcoming the discomfort

Observing to Learn and Learning to Observe

My MVP this week comes from Beverly Daniel Tatum. I’ve used her work both as a student and as an educator (it was the jumping off point for my favorite lessons with my Italian students, focusing on privileges).

The passage from her essay “Opening the Dialogue about Race at School” that struck me is:
“We needed to respond, we responded, and now we don’t have to talk about it anymore” (49).

I feel like this quote is unfortunately true for so many well-intended groups, both in and outside of school settings. Something sets off the community, there are efforts of reparation but they don’t survive the long run. Tatum goes on to remind us that despite the initial discomfort one might feel when broaching a subject such as systemic racism or societal inequalities, it is nevertheless important to keep pushing forward; the discomfort will eventually subside. Tatum notes that the discomfort may even develop into excitement or relief.

This idea ties into our reading from last week by Michelle Fine on the silencing culture that can be found in our schools. While it may be daunting to address the elephant(s) in the room as an educator, it is important to teach your students that, firstly, their experiences are valid and have a place in the classroom and, secondly, that they should not be intimidated into keeping quiet about what they see going on around them. We have a responsibility to continue responding to the issues and experiences our students bring to the classroom.