Ramadan Blog: Week V


Week five just had us covering chapter eight of the textbook. After last week’s readings covered early and middle childhood, this week moves us into adolescence. This chapter was more straight-forward and factual than previous chapters, and did not have many interesting discussion pieces, in my opinion. So I’d like to apologize in advance if this blog entry isn’t as good as my other previous ones.

It started out with the debate on when adolescence generally begins, and it varies from child to child, between the sexes and even culturally (p.186)! It is during this time children undergo hormonal and physical changes. It could be said that this time in life is the bridge to adulthood. Along with the changes that I mentioned earlier, teenagers undergo cognitive changes. Piaget calls it the “Formal Operational Stage”, where they can think abstractly, reason logically, exhibit hypothetical thinking and combine groups of concrete operations (p.191). It is for this reason I chose to teach high school, rather than becoming an elementary school teacher. With their increased level of cognition comes a slew of emotions, ranging from mood swings, to perceived invincibility and a whole lot of egocentrism, just to name a few.  

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