Behavioral Development

Our readings on behavioral development certainly gave me a lot to think about! I found that this excerpt from the resource on youth in foster homes summed things up nicely:

"We have found that you can ask one set of questions and be overwhelmed
and saddened by the forces that surround youth: poverty,
homelessness, drug addiction, violence, and incarceration. You can ask another
set of questions and be outraged by the injustices they have suffered in foster
care and the violations and humiliations they endure each day. Or you can ask
a different set of questions and be inspired by their hopes and dreams, their
idiosyncratic interests, their commitments and passions, and their desire to
participate fully in society."

This gave me a great deal of hope that, with guidance and support, young people can overcome the myriad pitfalls of adolescence and go on to become stable, well-adjusted adults. I also loved this insight from Developing Adolescents, which tied in with the above quote in my mind:

"Keep in mind that risk taking does not have to be dramatic. Simply stretching beyond one's former capacities constitutes taking a risk and can satisfy many adolescents' needs for risk taking if they are encouraged to do so (a youth who is talented in art may need to be encouraged to try a new medium; a shy youth who has a facility for languages may need prompting to use his skills in the community. Finding out what talents or interests a youth might have and then challenging that youth to channel his or her energies to take risks in positive ways takes time. But it is incredibly rewarding to see a potential problem behavior become an asset for the youth and the community."

These quotes remind me to keep the focus in my thinking on what can go right, not what it seems will surely, inevitably go wrong with so many cards stacked against young people. It is overwhelming to think that, on the road of life, there are so many ways to fall into a ditch: getting pregnant at 14, contracting an STD, accidentally killing someone while driving intoxicated. As a parent, I would imagine that the fear of all these potential pitfalls could be paralyzing. But to think of this desire in young people to take risks as a natural part of their development, and to think of ways to channel it into positive outlets, allows me to flip the coin and not get too discouraged.

With that said, there are a LOT of things that could go wrong!

I found the statistical analysis informative, thorough, frightening, surprising, and helpful. It was informative and thorough in that it covered a wide range of potentially dangerous behaviors youth might be engaging in, ranging from more "innocent" risk behaviors such as not eating enough vegetables, neglecting to wear a bicycle helmet, and even tanning, to more severe risk behaviors such as tobacco and alcohol use, unprotected sex, violence, bullying, suicide, and hard drugs. It was frightening and surprising in that it mentioned staggeringly young ages and often staggeringly high percentages for these behaviors. I would often find myself thinking, "So if 20.7% of students have taken prescription drugs without a prescription, presumably recreationally... then that's 1 in 5. In a class of 30 students, that could be 6 students with a pill problem." I did a great deal of this short of mental math, and while of course these figures are not going to directly carry over in that way to your particular classroom, thinking of in those terms put things in perspective for me. The statistics were helpful in that they made me aware of exactly what we as teachers are up against.

While I had some concerns that the statistical analysis in the Youth Risk Behavior Surveys data could lead to stereotyping with the way it was divided by race and gender, it was also valuable to note differences and keep an eye out for risks that might be higher for certain groups. For example, girls are more likely to have been electronically bullied or to have attempted suicide, so I might want to be more alert for signs of those problems in girls. Again, I don't want to stereotype, but it is nice to know the facts.

One thing that stood out to me was that the survey of behaviors was limited to students who were in school. I couldn't help but wonder about all the students who had engaged in these behaviors to an extent that they were no longer in school. I did a little Google-ing and found this website which mentioned that 93,000 young people were incarcerated in the US -- as of 1998. This was the most recent number I could find, and I'm sure that it has increased drastically since then.

http://www.justicepolicy.org/research/category/38

Reading on this topic makes me feel dedicated to the idea of helping students make better decisions and stay in school.

I enjoyed the discussion of resilience in Developing Adolescents. As someone who engaged in plenty of high risk behavior as a young person and came from an economically disadvantaged background, I found that the resilience factor (not to pat myself on the back :)) of a "Stable, Positive Relationship With at Least One Caring Adult" resonated with me. Certain teachers I had in high school -- two in particular who come to mind -- were probably the reason that I was able to stay on a decent path and not get too sidetracked. I was reminded of why I want to teach -- to try to pass that on to someone else.