This week’s readings for class gave a clear impression of just how much adolescents are changing in the social realm. Developing Adolescents highlights the shift from young people’s lives revolving around their families to revolving around their peers. When I taught students in 10th grade, it was readily apparent that their social standing with their peers had become extremely important to them. Dress, language, and attitude could all be seen as intended to help them blend in with the norms. While this is described as a healthy development, with the advice given that parents should feel it is natural for their children to become more concerned with friends and acceptance, there are also several caveats about risky behavior young people may engage in to “fit in,” with the advice given that positive adult role models are still needed to encourage good choices.
It was encouraging to see that students would be much more fixated on being accepted and more likely to conform to group norms in early adolescence, but would develop a firmer sense of self and more one-on-one relationships in later adolescence. This gave me some hope that, while many students in the 14-16 year old age range may be searching to belong and likely to engage in destructive behavior simply to avoid being teased or rejected, they are liable to develop a clearer identity and, hopefully, as an extension, a greater ability to say no in their later teen years. On the whole, it was stressed and seems quite apparent to me that young people who are uncertain about their new friendships and roles in the world definitely need an understanding, non-judgmental person with whom to speak about issues such as whether to have sex early, use drugs, etc. If there is one adult in whom a young person feels they can confide and in whose opinions they have faith, many negative outcomes such as early pregnancy, dropping out, being arrested, or contracting a sexually transmitted disease can be averted.
I also thought it was helpful to know that 5th grade students who have even one friend are more likely to have an easier time as adults, which makes me think as a teacher about encouraging social bonds among students. Many students are eager to socialize and don't necessarily need encouragement, but I would try to find ways to help more shy students engage with their peers.
Many of our resources for the week focused on gangs. It was disheartening to see how long and how consistently gangs have been a problem in so many areas of the country, but it was helpful to see warning signs and get an idea of which students may be particularly vulnerable to falling into gang life (i.e., those who are struggling economically and disconnected from their families, to whom the benefits of belonging to a group and getting material rewards may seem greater than the potential consequences of getting caught).
One of the statements which rang true to me was that schools may underestimate or not recognize gang involvement because they may not notice gang activity, or, if they are aware of gang presence, they may not wish to identify how severe the problem is because of the stigma their school could face as a result.
This brought to mind a personal experience from when I was teaching at an inner-city high school. Some of the other teachers mentioned to me that students in my classes were involved in gangs, but the administration never told me this or gave me any indicators to look for.
One day, a student got upset during a lesson that I was giving on the Latin words for different astrological signs. He got up and angrily erased the word “Crab” from the white board (I was giving the meaning of the word/star sign “Cancer”). He said, “Don’t use the word ‘Crab’. That’s a baaaaad word.” I was somewhat bewildered. I asked him to take a seat and continued with my lesson, but I later noticed, when I collected papers, that he had gone to great lengths to rub out the word ‘Crab’ on his handout with his pencil eraser.
When I got home, I looked up the word ‘Crab’ on UrbanDictionary.com, and I was dismayed/disturbed to learn that it stood for ‘Crips Respect All Bloods’. It was an antagonistic acronym meant to put down Crip gang members. This led me to assume that my student was either affiliated with, or at the very least aspired to be affiliated with, the Crip gang. I filled out a form describing the incident and turned it in to the administration – but it was never addressed. I later became aware that the gang problem at the school was so widespread that the administration felt overwhelmed to even attempt to tackle it.
It is clear that gangs are a reality in our culture, and simply ignoring them isn’t going to make them go away. I was relieved to hear that public schools in our city do have a program called GREAT (Gang Resistance Education and Training), and pleased to get a visit from a speaker affiliated with GREAT who spoke candidly to us about the problem and attempts that are being made to address it.
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