Reading Reflections - Cognitive & Emotional Development

            Cognitive and emotional development of adolescents…there is a lot of information covering these two topics.  Not to mention a lot of different hot topics related to the cognitive and emotional aspects of development.  I will be the first to admit though that after reading all of the links related to these two topics my head is slightly spinning with all of the information.  Therefore, I will do my best to sort through it and touch on the main topics which interested me.

            The first thing that really interested me is how much the cognitive and emotional development of adolescents is interconnected.  As stated in Developing Adolescents this is the first time when an individual has the cognitive capacity to consciously figure out who they are and what makes them unique.  Their cognitive development is closely tied to their emotional development.  Not only are they going through physical changes with their body, they also have to adapt to this new way of thinking and evaluating what is important to them. 

            I have never stopped to really think about why I want to be a Middle School teacher.  I just figured it out by trial and error as I worked with children and youth aged five to eighteen.  Somehow I always felt the most comfortable working with the middle age groups and I quickly realized that was the age range I wanted to teach.  The funny thing is that after reading the material on cognitive and emotional development of adolescents it is crystal clear to me why I want to teach that age.  I love how they are making the cognitive transition from concrete thinking to formal logical operations as they start to ask the question “why”.  They begin to be able to view the “grey” in things and realize that life is not all black and white.  As stated in the What is Cognitive Development link this is when students start to question and analyze more extensively as they really start to explore who they are and what they value.  They start to develop a set of morals and ethics which help to define who they are as an individual with big dreams and ideas.  This to me is what life is all about no matter what age you are.  The idea that I can be teaching, educating, and most importantly guiding these students as they venture on the start of these changes truly excites me.    

            On the flip side I completely understand how and why these same reasons of cognitive and emotional development would deter some people from wanting to teach this age range.  As pointed out in the Developing Adolescent text, students at this age tend to argue for the sake of arguing, jump to conclusions, be self-centered, constantly find fault in the adult’s position, and be overly dramatic.  For most people these aspects are enough to stay away from the adolescent age range.  However, I myself was one of the students who always wanted to learn more and know more by asking why and forming arguments just to try and see the other side.  I can relate to the adolescent need and want to try and understand the “grey” area which their cognitive development is making them acutely aware to.  Most of the reasons that would deter teachers form teaching this age range draw me to it. 

            Another aspect within cognitive development is moral development.  This also excites me as adolescents do value and look towards adults for guidance despite how they may act at times.  The Moral Development link depicts how the cognitive and behavioral development contributes to defining what an adolescent will value and view as ethical and just.  What a person values and views as fair greatly affect how a person will act and grow.  The idea that my actions, thoughts, and teachings can affect the moral development of an individual to help make them a productive member of society intrigues me.   

            The site which I really enjoyed looking around in was the Seven Counties Services, Inc. site.  This site has a lot of information which I found to be very clear and interesting.  The Maturing Adolescent Brain section clearing articulates how teens learn to analyze and evaluate their thoughts and beliefs as their concept of metacognition strengthens.  Most of us have probably heard of and are familiar with Freud’s psychosexual stage theory, Erikson’s psychosocial stage theory, Kohlberg’s moral understanding stage theory, and Piaget’s cognitive development stage theory.  However, Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory was a new one for me which is explained in the Urie Bronfenbrenner link.  Bronfenbrenner believes that everything in a child and the child’s environment affects how a child grows and develops and these levels of the environment include the microsystem, the mesosystem, the exosystem, and the macrosystem.  This reminded me how essential it is to have family involvement throughout the education system.  The idea of temperament is also included in this theory.  As stated in the Emotional Development link temperament refers to a genetically determined tendency to behave in a particular way.  Although this concept is genetic, there are things we can do as teachers to mitigate it’s effect.

            An article which I found valuable for my future teaching practices was the Two-footed Questions link.  Attempting to gain the attention of a group of adolescents can be…shall we just say challenging.  This is a great technique where a teacher can use questions to appeal to the student and their life while at the same time relating to the lesson.  As a teacher it is our job to create student motivation which will lead to student success. 

            Overall, cognitive development appeals to me more than emotional development in relation to adolescents.  The reason for this is simple although I am not sure it is 100% justified as the two overlap so much.  I believe that I can affect a student’s cognitive development more than I can affect their emotional development.  It is my job to teach students how to evaluate the “gray” area during their cognitive development so they can be able to apply that information to their life.  But I can only guide them to evaluate their emotions and feelings during their emotional development. 

            The Developing Adolescents article states some ways a teacher or parent can help to guide an adolescent through their emotional development such as engaging adolescents with nonthreatening questions, listening nonjudgmentally by listening more than speaking, asking open ended questions, matching the adolescent’s emotional state unless it is hostile, causally modeling rational decision-making strategies, and discussing ethical and moral problems that are in the news.  However to me these strategies appeal to the development of their cognitive skills almost as much, if not more, than their emotional skills.  The two really are interconnected along with emotional intelligence.  Adolescents are developing their emotional intelligence or EQ as related to in the Daniel Goelman link during this time as well.  Students have to learn how to recognize and manage emotions, develop empathy, learn to resolve conflict constructively, and develop a cooperative spirit.

            The last topic I am going to touch on for this post is the idea of self-concept vs. self-esteem.  Many of our readings, such as the Introduction to Self-Esteem, the Sense of Identity/Self-Esteem and the Self-Concept Self-Esteem links address these concepts which include a lot of information.  However, as this blog post has already gone on long enough I am going to try and summarize them the quickest I can.  Self-concept is something every individual has to figure out for themselves, on their own.  We all have to decided and figure out who we are and what we value and this starts during adolescents when our form of thinking begins to change from concrete to abstract.  Self-concept is then used to evaluate one’s self-esteem, or how they value and view themselves.  I never thought about how an adolescent giving up “childish” activities might lower their self-esteem as was pointed out in one link.  There are so many different facets to what determines one’s self-esteem and self-concept but the reality is only that individual can determine them.  I can tell a child they are the most intelligent person in the world, but unless they believe it, it will mean nothing.  As a teacher, the best I can do is value each student equally as I model my own self-concept and self-esteem while giving them opportunities to question and discover their own.
          Cognitive and emotional development relate to many hot topics including bullying, sexual orientation, drop outs, violence, immigration, multiculturalism, suicide, and more which I will discuss in my next post.