Understanding Adolescents: A Constructive Approach
By Daniel Barone
EDI 17 Psychology & Development of Adolescent Students
School of Education
Long Island University, C. W. Post
February 4, 2009
After reading chapter 3 of Understanding Youth, I learned a lot about how the thinking of adolescents is created. I learned theoretical thinking is model building and that we build our thoughts from the models of others. I found this to be extremely interesting and after reading this, I paused for a moment because this made me realize that in a way, I am a “model” for my students. Of course as a teacher, students will be learning what I teach them, but more than that, my students will be building or “constructing” their own thoughts by my modeling.
This made me realize that my role as a teacher is even more important than I had thought. If one thinks about it, this is creativity because we constantly create our own thinking through interacting with other people. Even more than that, we can think of ourselves as co-creators because not only do we create thinking FOR others, but FROM others as well. In my opinion, this is important to realize as a teacher because it is quite possible for students to create thinking for teachers as well.
After learning about model building, I paused again for a moment to ask myself the question, how do I help my students build on their thinking, and where do I start? When I proceeded to read further, I was relieved to see that my question was answered, and I was very interested when I learned that I should begin by building scaffolds.
I learned that we need to start by making connections with our students but we build on that connection by deepening it and most of all, we promote and take risks in doing so. We as teachers promote risks by pushing or encouraging our students to engage in new learning challenges and experiences.
Long Island University, C. W. Post
February 4, 2009
After reading chapter 3 of Understanding Youth, I learned a lot about how the thinking of adolescents is created. I learned theoretical thinking is model building and that we build our thoughts from the models of others. I found this to be extremely interesting and after reading this, I paused for a moment because this made me realize that in a way, I am a “model” for my students. Of course as a teacher, students will be learning what I teach them, but more than that, my students will be building or “constructing” their own thoughts by my modeling.
This made me realize that my role as a teacher is even more important than I had thought. If one thinks about it, this is creativity because we constantly create our own thinking through interacting with other people. Even more than that, we can think of ourselves as co-creators because not only do we create thinking FOR others, but FROM others as well. In my opinion, this is important to realize as a teacher because it is quite possible for students to create thinking for teachers as well.
After learning about model building, I paused again for a moment to ask myself the question, how do I help my students build on their thinking, and where do I start? When I proceeded to read further, I was relieved to see that my question was answered, and I was very interested when I learned that I should begin by building scaffolds.
I learned that we need to start by making connections with our students but we build on that connection by deepening it and most of all, we promote and take risks in doing so. We as teachers promote risks by pushing or encouraging our students to engage in new learning challenges and experiences.
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