Exam TWO
Question 1

Understanding and Managing Adolescents

In chilhood developement there are several crisis moment where seperation occurs between themselves and the wortld. Children reaching their 12–14 year are coming into one of those of crisis points (The word crisis in the Chinese means danger and opportunity). They’re lives are beginning to be vastly different from anything they have experienced until this point. A new state of consciousness is expressed through the physical changes with the development of the sexual organs, changes in the larynx, a growth spurt in the arms and legs heralding adolescence. During this time an intense inner world of feeling begins to grow and expanding in the students giving them a powerful sense of themselves. This new world is a “four seasons in one day” kind of landscape of feeling, always changing from one minute to the next, sometimes strong and explosive weather and other times mild and calm with everything else in between. The main difference that occurs around this age is that along with this new abstract feeling awareness comes the beginnings of abstract thought and thinking activity, Thoughts such as why do I feel like this, what does it mean, what do I do with how I feel how should I express them begin make themselves ever present in the students individual search for meaning in relating to the world. Because of this newly emerging feeling and thinking world a heightened sense of themselves creates a separation from the outer world, this is the “crisis”. On the one hand the dangerous element to this time is that the adolescent expresses these abstract thoughts and feelings through "doing" in an attempt to bridge the gap between themselves and the world. Left to themself these expressions can be destructive to the environment and to the individual. To balance this a teacher or caregiver must step into the breech and offer thoughtful guidance. Guidance is this case can only come from a teachers truthful and real life experience of the world not just a theoretical one as studetns of this age strongly desire knowledge gained through the experience of living. The opportunity for a student to gain a positive deep understanding of the relationships between themselves and world can safely come about though the guidance and experience of an older mento/ friend.
A teacher facing a class of adolescents need to practice an incredible balancing act between allowing the students to express themselves and at the same time meeting them in their expression to give them the required feedback they need in learning to find what is appropriate behaviour not what is destructive.
In order to create a positive and safe place for the adolescent student to achieve this crucial reflective process a teacher can provide for them five fundamental platforms as suggested by William Glasser.

A Secure place
A teacher of adolescents can provide a secure place by creating a place that is beautiful, lots of colourful images or paintings depicting important soul values such as valour, courage, loving sacrifice, reverence, beauty, truthfulness and goodness…perhaps a picture of valiant Knights would be just the thing, so that the students can always have positive emotions exhibited before them.


To be loved
To Create a sense of belonging and place through allowing each child to have input that is valued and encouraged through using the jigsaw and graffiti methods of teaching and allowing each child to critically reflect on each lesson and have a moment to verbally express this. A teacher could also make time for each student during the day, perhaps as they enter the room in the morning and exchange a few words of welcome.

To have power

To have the ability, skill, or capacity to do something, To have the feeling of achievement even it is small, to have a sense of feeling worth while, to have the feeling of being empowered in what they think feel and do. To be involved in deciding the lesson process.

To have Freedom
To allow the students to have some level of autonomy in how they exercise their lesson work and by allowing them to play a part in decisions regarding the classroom and in creating logical consequences.

To have fun and learning
To allow time for the students to enjoy their learning by catering to the multiple intelligences.