College of Education
Long Island University, C. W. Post
January 28, 2011
I found chapter one of Nakkula’s and Toshalis’s Understanding Youth an easy and interesting read. I liked how the author’s talked about the enormous pressure that is put on adolescent students during their sophomore and junior years of high school. Nakkula and Toshalis wrote, “By early adolescence, however, students clearly associate their school performance with possibilities for the future. And by middle high school-tenth or eleventh grade- school performance is strongly associated with life opportunities and plans or early adulthood” (7). The term “life opportunities” is what got my attention. The thought of a sophomore taking his/her global history or biology class and it serving as a possible life opportunity is troubling. I personally believe that a 15 year old shouldn’t have to worry about how they perform in their global history or biology course because it may influence their adult life. I’m not saying that they shouldn’t be thinking about a possible career choice or what they might like to study in college, but it seems like there is too much pressure on the adolescent student’s life. High schools are putting emphasis on how well students perform in their academic classes, but what school administrators don’t realize is that academia is not for every student.
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