College of Education
Long Island University, C. W. Post
January 28, 2011
Like the chapter three readings, I also found the chapter four readings of Understanding Youth interesting and engaging. The part that I especially liked when Nakkula and Toshalis talked about how teachers need to realize that students are going through a very tumultuous time in their life. Nakkula and Toshalis wrote, “As educators we might consider how to accompany adolescents as they struggle with the emotional impact and sheer energy expenditure associated with a diffuse identity status. Imagine what it’s like to negotiate, in a single day, family and peer expectations as they are experienced at the home breakfast table, on the school bus, in the school hallway…” (33).
I think that Nakkula and Toshalis bring up a point that many teachers/educators tend to overlook. Most teachers ignore the social difficulties that their adolescent student lives because they don’t want any part in it. They want to teach the students the material and be done with them. What teachers generally don’t realize is that along with the enormous academic pressure that is put on students (see journal 3) there is a tremendous amount of social pressure that students have to deal with on a daily basis. Being a high school student is like being under a social microscope. One misstep and the entire student body will know about it within minutes (especially with today’s technology). With this in mind, I think teacher’s need to take a moment every now and then and think about when they were in high school, and the scrutiny student’s are under on daily basis.
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