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Essays over adolescence
Essays over adolescence
Essays over adolescence
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What can you learn about adolescence by watching five very different teens spend Saturday detention together? With each and everyone of them having their own issues weather it be at home, school, or within themselves. During this stage of life adolescents are seen as rude, disrespectful, and out of control. But why is this? Is it truly all the child’s fault? Teens have to face quite a few issues while growing up. Adolescence is the part of development where children begin push back against authority and try to figure out who they are or who they are going to become. Therefore, we will be looking at adolescent physical changes, their relationships, cognitive changes and the search for identity as depicted in the movie The Breakfast Club (Hughes,1985).
As we all know children grow and develop at their own pace but for an adolescent is isn’t just pimples or being too skinny. For adolescents their appearance can make or break their entire school experience. They can either be the popular prom queen such a Claire or maybe even the tough bad boy like Bender. But what about the little guys out there what about the not so pretty or not so big and tough guys what about people like Brian? Brian is very intelligent yet he lacks something that the other boys in the movie have and that is size. Brian is significantly smaller than the other two. For a child like Brian it is difficult to be accepted into social circles that involve things that more mature looking adolescents are involved in. Although this is something adolescents have been having to deal with for generations their appearance can cause then tremendous issues. Like Brian, a child will be pushed around talked over or even bullied for their small stature or in ...
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... with look up to her and her friends. These are both examples of the two key components of adolescent egocentrism; personal fable and imaginary audience (Elkind, 1976). Not only do most adolescents thing that the world revolves around them but their decision making skills are lacking as well. At this point in life adolescents are very impulsive and are more likely to do things that others around them take part in.
Lastly, we look at identity without knowing it adolescents are searching for the answers to the question, “who am I?”. Although this is an important part of development for this stage it didn’t just being in this stage nor do adolescents have the capability to figure it all out. While growing up children are pushed one way or another by parents and peers some are pushed towards academics while others athletics. But how influential are parents and peers?
In the iconic film, The Breakfast Club, five random high school students must spend their Saturday together in detention. Each teen is in detention for a different reason. The Jock (Andrew), the Princess (Claire), the Brain (Brian), the Basket Case (Allison), and the Criminal (Bender) must put aside their differences to survive their grueling eight-hour detention with their psychotic and rash principal Mr. Vernon. While in detention, they are expected to write about “who they really are” in one thousand words. Throughout the day, their actions reveal their innermost struggle involving their cliques and their home lives. As the movie progresses, we find out the reason each teen is in detention that culminates in a climactic discussion about
We are introduced to adolescence in the 5th stage of development. Adolescence begins for boys around the age of 14 and continues up until the age of 21 years of age. At this stage of development, there are many changes that occur emotionally, physically, sexually and spiritually (McGoldrick, Carter, & Garcia Preto, 2011). At this time, adolescent kids are going through changes in their body. They are dealing with coming into their own sexuality. Skills pertaining to social skills and social relationships are being developed through experience. Adolescents are also increasing their skills of physical and mental coordination, such as learning about the world and working on their own coordination. Adolescence is also characterized by learning their own identity and where they fit in the world, as well as learning their relationship with peers and those around them. Spiritual identity is also developed along with a deeper understanding of life. Independence is something that is also weighing on the mind of an adolescent. Overall changes in the family structure can also occur when a child of this age reaches this
Adolescence is the time of development and mental advancement that happens between the onset of puberty and the fulfillment of physical and emotional development. Despite the fact that young ladies experience more dramatic physical change throughout adolescence than do young men, they have a tendency to achieve puberty prior and take less time to achieve development. Immaturity in girls start around the age of eleven and proceeds through about age sixteen. In youthful men, the same period starts about the age of thirteen and proceeds through about age eighteen. After about age fourteen, guys are,normal, heavier and taller than females. The motion picture film Thirteen, directed by Catherine Hardwicke introduces a correct and important point of view on the post-millennial adolescent experience and also displays many issues teens face in today’s society such as peer pressure, teenage sexuality, and drug use,
During this stage, Erikson believes that the individual’s successful identity formation relies on social, cognitive and physical maturation (Pittman, Keiley, Kerpelman, & Vaughn, 2011). The individual tries out different roles for who they see in themselves and who they portray to others, eventually committing to their own personal role and occupational choice. Pittman et al. (2011) describe the identity formation as “consisting of decisions, investments, and commitments tied to current and future roles, goals, and relationships.” Additional considerations for identity formation include the context of the culture which is available to the adolescent during this time. After successful resolution of this stage during adolescence, individuals will typically progress into Erikson’s Intimacy versus Isolation stage during young
The movie The Breakfast Club was released in 1985, and is based on a group of five high school students from stereotypical cliques; the popular, jock, nerd and the outcasts, who all wind up stuck together for Saturday detention. Throughout the movie many themes present themselves such as teenage rebellion, peer pressure and family issues as the students get to know each other. The most prominent theme throughout the movie is the student’s placement in the social structure of the school. From the very different reasons why they are in detention to the way that they are all treated differently by the principle, their social placement is evident.
Claire Standish was known as “the princess”. She dressed in pink and acquired many material items because of her rich parents. Many students envied her life, and considered her to be stuck up and snobbish because she received whatever she wanted. Andrew Clark was known as “the athlete”. He wore a letter jacket with all of his accolades displayed and seemed to discriminate and bully kids whose social statuses were below his. This is especially apparent in his reason for the detention: bullying a fellow student in the locker room. In addition to this, both Claire and Andrew’s reference groups and family social contexts guided them to the detention that day. Andrew’s father and friends encouraged him to perform the bullying act that landed him in detention. His father was happy that Andrew was attending the detention because he believed it would give him a better reputation in the athletic world. Claire’s father allowed her to skip school one day to go shopping. It seemed that Claire’s family believed that material items and wealth was more important than school. Claire displayed this belief and landed a spot in detention. Although Claire and Andrew did not reside in the same high school cliques, their cliques were near the top of their high school hierarchy. Their cliques defined what everyone thought they wanted, but the stereotypes that surrounded these two individuals was a façade. They also discovered through the journey of the film which was the realization that everyone is the same on the inside, even though their outsides are
Adolescents is a time of significant life transitions in which young adults learn to cope with changes that are brought about by physical and emotional maturation (Sands and Howard-Hamilton, 1994). During this time girls begin to become more aware of themselves as females, and learn to identify society’s signals to conform appropriately for their gender (Sands and Howard-Hamilton, 1994). The highschool girls that are present in this writers program are starting to unders...
Steve Jobs once said, during a commencement speech at Stanford, “Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice” (Goodreads). Every single person on earth is a unique individual with their own thoughts and actions. In life every person goes through a stage of growth and development, both mentally and physically, where they are striving to become a more complete human being not constrained by their youth. This stage usually develops during adolescence, happening in the teenage years of one’s life. It also happens that this is occurring during the time of school when children are starting to study harder material and deal with more complex social situations.
As the movie starts out, the five teenagers are being punished with Saturday detention; their assignment for the next eight hours was to right a paper entitled “Who Am I?” Their most probable assumption was from them to write about their achievements. Being students in America, we are all raised to excel at whatever we do, whether it be at grades, wrestling, or being popular. Since “they judged themselves by what they do and achieve, their self-identities depend upon their achievements,” (Kimball and Leidich page three). This leads to competitiveness, envy, jealously, and greed. Bender was jealous of Claire social status and of her leading “a better life” and to react to that he yelled at her and over-exaggerated the truth. He judged her by material possessions (earrings) and by social standings (prom queen), and he judged himself against her and that led to him wanting what she has (earrings and virginity). First he tried being more competitive with her by calling her names and putting her down so that he could seem higher and “cooler” than her. Then he became envious and jealous of her, wanting what she had. This two then lead to greed. Fortunately for the both of them, they got beyond the achievements and fell in love. They learned to judge each other by the quality of their relationships and their lives. On the outside, Andrew thought that Brian had a pretty good life. He had both good, loyal friends and great grades, something he could possibly be envious of. It appears that Brian had great friends that did not judge him for what he did, but who he was. Brian wanted to hang out with the cool people, but he knew his social class. Possibly, he used a flare gun to kill himself because he felt that was the way his clique functioned and that would make his death more appealing to the popular. Alison felt that she needed someone to talk to. This is why she showed up. She was ignored by her parents and probably felt that anyone was good enough to ...
Luckily, many young people come to learn the same lesson as Phillip and myself. Just because you find yourself lumped into one of these ‘Breakfast Club’ categories doesn’t mean that you are trapped there for life. At a young age the weight of the world seems to rest on your shoulders and you find solace in the shared misery of teenage angst. Once you move past that stage of life, though, you find that these groups have more in common than first thought.
In the movie The Breakfast Club, five seemingly different adolescents are assigned Saturday detention where they learn that although they each fit a particular stereotype, they all have the same characteristics, but they are expressed differently because they have different experiences, strengths and weaknesses that makes them who they are. In the movie, Bender is the “criminal”, Brian is the “brain” and Allison is the “psychopath.” Each of their situations, strengths and weakness are similar to students that are in our classrooms currently or we may have in our classrooms in the future. For each student it is important to understand their learning differences and as a teacher, how I can use their strengths to help them become successful students.
Adolescence refers to the transition period experienced by children that occur between childhood and adulthood (Shefer, 2011). Identity is first confronted in adolescence between the ages 12 – 19 years old, because of physical and hormonal changes in the body. It is also due to the introduction of formal operations in cognitive development and societal expectation that this contributes to an individual’s identity to be explored and established (McAdams, 2009). The forces within and outside (family, community) the individual that promote identity development usually create a sense of tension. The basic task is, in Erikson’s terms, “fidelity or truthfulness and consistency to one’s core self or faith in one’s ideology” (Fleming, 2004: 9), in a nutshell: "Who am I and where am I
Keating, D. (1990): Adolescent thinking, in: S.S. Feldman and G.R. Elliott (eds.) At the threshold: The developing adolescent , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 54-–89.
Who are you? This question could be exceedingly intricate to answer if you were to ask an adolescent. Teens are experiencing countless changes in their development, which is why it is such a significant time for them. During this time teenagers develop their sense of self. Film has helped portray some of the changes that occur during this evolving developmental period. For this paper, I will be describing the differences between two adolescent films to depict differences in developing the self. Some differences I will cover include types of self, Erickson’s Identity Crisis, Marcia’s Identity Status Interview theory, and culture over time.(Arnett, 2013)
The main issue that children face during this stage is self-identification. Adolescents are making the transition to adulthood and trying to figure out exactly who they are. Children during this time, often experience an identity crisis as they explore many different beliefs and value systems in the search for self-identity (Woolfolk, 2013, p.102). Societal forces, such as race, sex and class, also play an important role in self-identification, especially in regards to African American youth. Erikson believed that the search for identity encompassed not only how an individual viewed him or herself but also how they were viewed by society (Brittian 2012). African Americans, between the ages of 12 and 18, grapple with the same issues all adolescents experience, such as physical changes and the desire for autonomy. However, African American adolescents also deal with racial prejudice and the role that it plays in shaping their self-perception. According to Brittian (2012), the way that African Americans handle issues of race, rather problematic or constructive, has a major impact on the formation of their self-identity. Identity is the focal point of the adolescence stage and when children can’t decide who they are or their place in society, they become hampered by an identity