All posts by Lisa Hidalgo

Pubertal Timing

Perspectives & History of Adolescence

“… family adversity -including instability in parents’ relationships- has been identified as a fairly consistent accelerator of pubertal timing.” (Johnson, Crosnoe, Elder, 2011, p. 4)

              There are a few remarks from this research that I don’t agree with or not convinced by, but they’re usually followed by: “The possibility needs to be studied more explicitly,” or “future research efforts should include…” One comment I strongly agree with from this article is that if there is instability in the student’s parents’ relationship it could accelerate ‘pubertal timing.’ Basically, any or some instability at home that is witnessed by the student can cause consequences in their school career, for example: creating bad habits like poor time management, being unmotivated or unorganized. I can relate to this because my home life affected how I was as a student, from primary school and sometimes even now as a graduate student. I didn’t have teachers that would notice my bad habits and try to help me through them. During my first year of college I had to work on reversing my bad habits, and to this day I’m still working on it. In my future classroom I hope to know what my students home life is like or if they’re going through a tough moment, but there’s that possibility that I may not know what’s going on in their personal life. For that reason, I think as an educator we should all incorporate mini workshops on how to manage time and how to be organized so that we can remind students that it is possible to be on top of their work, and to keep their education first.

Be patient & support the difference

Observing to Learn and Learning to Observe, Urban Adolescents

Theme 3: The Need for More Support from School Counselors (Roxas, Gabriel & Becker, 2017, pp. 20-22)

It was emotional reading the perspectives of ESL students on how the staff and school can help them in their learning experience. Emotional because I know for a fact that they’re not getting the specialized support they need, even from the first day of my student teaching. The common denominator shared through the comments by these students is their need for the school to be more welcoming, accepting, and patient. You would think that since the children don’t understand the language that they won’t know what’s going on at school, for example, not understand the homework, but they don’t need to know the language to feel the difference that exists between them and the other students. A difference that they consider racist and makes it a challenge for them to fit in.

Taking into consideration the student’s suggestions on what could help them during their transition, I want to use it as motivation for me to one day be able to educate or make aware to students and colleagues that we are a part of an ESL student’s school experience, not just the English lessons. It’s important for all staff and non-ESL students to accept, be patient, be comfortable, and support immigrant students during their move from a different country or school. Now, what is too much support?, is there such a thing as too much support?, and how do we help? are all questions of boundaries. When an ESL student suggested that another student could help them read a book, I thought: is that asking too much of a student? should that be their responsibility? For me, that would be so thoughtful, but I’m not sure if there’s a student that would do that. Sometimes I think I’m doubting the next generation’s capability and desire to help others, but I believe I can help that desire grow, it’s one of many reasons why I wanted to become a teacher in the first place, to make global citizens out of any and all students.

Do you take the short bus?

Culturally, Linguistically, and Socioeconomically Diverse Adolescents in Urban Contexts: Framing the Conversation, Urban Adolescents

MVP: ‘School spaces: privacy and postitionality’, pp. 107-109

            Being placed in special education has negative stereotypes from a student’s perspective. In this article, and from my personal experience, teachers do not help destigmatize these discriminating assumptions. Some assumptions include: the short bus supposedly being for special ed. kids and that they’re all slow. There is no way of knowing where these beliefs come from, we just know they exist and most of the time we look past it. Therefore, overtime a social status in schools is created and special education students feel segregated from the rest of the school due to their small classrooms and the assumptions. Also, feeling different from the others can cause students to find the need to protect their social status or hide the fact that they’re in special ed. As for me, I did both and it was a lot of hard work to defend my social status and keep my secret of being in special ed. at the age of 8. Going forward, and as a future educator, I can’t change stereotypes overnight but I can reach out to fellow educators to help educate all students that special education is a program to support students and should not be judged or viewed negatively. (Ferri & Connor, 2010)