Prior to digging deeper into the high school developmental level, I had a lot of preconceived notions. High schoolers are typically given a very hard time despite all of the emotional/physical stress that they are having to handle on their own. High school is the first taste of freedom that these students feel which for most students, can be extremely scary. The transition from middle to high school, in my opinion, is one of the hardest transitions for a student to make. As Erik Erikson points out in his Theory of Psychological Development, these students fall right into the “adolescent stage” (12-18 years) where they are navigating through their identity and the social role that they play. They have to navigate multiple classes/teachers a day, a bigger school (in most cases), the pressure of the future and social/emotional stresses. Not to mention that this is the prime time for these students to “find themselves” and figure out their goals in life. Although there was a wide range of videos, the underlying theme that I recognized in all of them was stress. I “relearned” the importance of helpful/caring teachers in these students lives and I was able “unlearn” that high school students were “uninterested” in their education. What I gained through these videos related a lot back to my own personal experience in high school. I would say that I was stressed 95% percent of the time as well, I had to balance my home life, my educational, my social life, my faith, extracurriculars, sports, etc. These students, like me, have a LOT on their hands while also trying to navigate their way through life, making mistakes and learning things as they go.
|
Self-Care in High School: Emotional and Cognitive Development
In this video 5 different high schoolers talk about the pressure they put on themselves to perform despite the stress that they feel from other areas of their lives. What I gained from this video is that stress can really come from anywhere. We have one teen who is stressed about college, one who is stressed about her health, one stressed about parents fighting, etc. The list is never-ending and I think as teachers, we need to recognize this; stress looks different for everyone. These teens talk through their self-care routines and how to get through the stress and pressure that they endure. It was cool to see that they knew how to handle/center themselves in these situations. |
Countless of these videos focused on high school stress. The biggest assumption/bias that I feel like many people have against high schoolers is that majority of their stress comes from drama and irrelevant things that “get in the way of their schoolwork.” However, after hearing numerous high schoolers share their personal struggles with stress, I realized that school plays a large role in the stress. They feel pressured about their futures/college, they have personal lives that can get in the way, they are balancing extracurriculars with homework; whatever it may be, it is playing a large, negative effect on their mental health. As a future teacher, although I am not focusing on secondary education, now know what my students will go through when they get older. I am hoping that I can play some sort of role while they are still developing time management skills etc., while they are younger to alleviate some of what they will endure when they are older. The biggest takeaway that this taught me was that I need to see my students; show them that I care. Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences lends itself fairly well to the stressful life of high schoolers. I think in high school these students are learning to navigate/learn to use their intrapersonal, interpersonal, and existential intelligences. They are starting to learn a lot more through feelings/values/attitudes, interactions with others and real-world understandings rather than through textbooks and worksheets. High school is time for these students to start figuring things out on their own, being aware of their own surroundings/passions/goals, etc. Jean Piaget backs this theory up with her own Theory of Cognitive Development. In the fourth stage, formal operational (ages 12-adulthood), she says students learn more through deductive reasoning/thinking hypothetically. In this stage, students run into more moral, social and ethical issues. I saw this a lot in the majority of the videos, students were heavily influenced by the choices/values of those around them which then caused them to question their own. Jean Piaget’s theory lends itself to the big picture of high school: where a student is truly able to “find themselves.”
|
I learned more about emotional intelligence, and how we, as future teachers need to provide safe learning spaces that allow our students to be open about their needs. It is so important to practice/teach stress-releasing activities/exercises to help alleviate some of the anxieties that they feel countless times in one day. In relation to some of the other videos I watched, one about teen vaping and the other about racist language being used in the schools, I realized that high school students are encouraged to grow up too fast. I think that Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs plays a large role in this. High school is a crucial time for these students to recognize their own needs, and what comes first in their lives. When their priorities become out of line (all levels of the pyramid are not followed in order) is when things start to feel chaotic and stress starts to infiltrate in. I also see Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Theory of the “Ecological Systems” playing a role in high school. They have navigated through the micro and meso systems and they are moving on to figuring out the Exo and macro systems. They are starting to be more and more influenced by their environmental surroundings and the social/cultural values. This is where peer pressure starts to take a large part in added stress for these teens. As I saw in one of the videos, these high schoolers long for social acceptance and respect from their peers which can cause them to do things out of their character. This is heavily related to how each and every student navigates their own ecological systems as they get older.
|
Throughout my entire “virtual field visit,” my heart ached for the amount of stress these high school students go through and how seemingly unaware the majority of their teachers are. This lead me to create my artifact: a poster about stress that I hope to hang up someday in my future classroom. I want my students to know that above all, I see and value them as people. Above their schoolwork and above all else that is going on in their lives: I see them, I see the whole person that they are and I cherish that. It is something that I want to keep at the center of my classroom: my students are loved. In this poster, I decided to focus on the quote: “We cannot control stress, but we have the ability to choose how we respond to it.” I want to encourage my students to handle their stress in a positive manner. I found that through a lot of these videos, these students were stressed and a lot of them were unsure of how to handle it. High school is such a crucial time where these students are forced into making life-changing decisions all while managing the stress of social relationships, peer pressures, extracurriculars, etc. I now recognize the stress that students, of all ages, go through and I hope as a future teacher, I can help alleviate some of this and be a positive influence in their lives.
|