Josh+Harris



** Adolescence **

** W : What you want to know (curiosities/inquiry questions) **
1. **Does developing a positive relationship with students really impact their performance in school as well as their development through adolescence?**

** Resource #1 **

 * Read:**
 * I read an article entitled "Student-Teacher Relationships Key to Cooperative Classrooms" published by the US Fed News Service in 2008. The article begins by discussing peer violence in high schools, as well as the effects it can have on the learning environment, such as increased stress on teachers and students, increased likelihood of suspensions, and a negative impact on the learning of the classroom as a whole.The article goes on to cite a study conducted by doctoral student Michael Ripski, whose research seems to show a correlation between building student-teacher relationships and preventing trouble in the classroom. Interviewed students tend to carry more respect for teachers that a relational approach to their students, as well as feel safer in that teachers classroom, resulting in a more productive learning environment.


 * Respond:**
 * This is a large part of my philosophy of education; the importance of building personal relationships with your students. I feel that clearly defined expectations, along with open lines of communication and showing genuine care for your students is the foundation for for creating an effective community of learners. If you don't respect and care about your students, then they will not respect and care about you. As an educator, you may be very passionate and knowledgeable about your subject matter, but it won't be worth anything if you can't actively engage the students. I would even go so far as to say that in terms of teaching, knowledge of content is secondary to people skills and how well you are able to relate to your students. I believe this to be especially true in high school and adolescent students, which is the age range which I plan on working with.


 * APA Citation:**
 * Maki, Melissa. (2008, November 4). Student-Teacher Relationships Key to Cooperative Classrooms. //US Fed News Service, Including US State News//.


 * Read:**
 * I read an article called "What a teacher learns; Education; Listening to a student and building a relationship can change a child's path" written by John Samuel Tieman, and published in St. Louis Dispatch in June of 2012. Tieman is an English teacher in St. Louis, and he begins by talking about his students' anxieties over the upcoming state tests. A colleague of his suggested to just give them some candy and don't talk about the test. Left speechless at her "attempt" to solve his problem, he begins to wonder about education reform, and how no one seems to have a clear-cut answer on how to fix education in our country. Being a psychoanalyst, Tieman believes applying the techniques of Sigmund Freud over the behavioral modification principles of Skinner and Pavlov. Instead of simply modifying behavior to create a desired outcome, Tieman reasons that "educational psychology needs to get back to it's roots, and honor and attend to the emotional lives of administrators, teachers, and students. He concludes by telling the story of one of his former students, Tomyko. Tomyko suffered from homelessness, no parents, gang affiliations, and had experimented with drugs and sex. At times he felt like a father scolding his child, but he would remind himself that this kid had no stable father-figure in his life, and he would attempt to address the behavior, and not attack the person. Tomyko is now in community college, and although Tieman doesn't take sole credit for this, he believes that his efforts made an impact.


 * Respond:**
 * The story at the end of Tieman's article is precisely the type of impact I am looking to have on my students. All students need support at one time or another, and it is the role of the educator to be there for them. I believe that the content taught in class is only a part of what a teacher teaches his or her students. I also believe that we tend to rely on behavioral modification psychology too much, simply because it is a straightforward set of directions, "If they are doing this, then I should do this, and then this will happen". Clearly not all students are the same, everyone comes from a different background and has a different set of life experiences that makes them who they are. I just believe that if we look at our students as people and not just students sometimes, they will respond to that. Gaining their trust and respect is key, and without that, it becomes truly difficult to invest themselves emotionally into school.


 * APA Citation:**
 * Tieman, J. S. (2012, Jun 27). What a teacher learns; education; listening to a student and building a relationship can change a child's path. //St.Louis Post - Dispatch//. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1022491728?accountid=2909

** Resource #3 **
>
 * Read:**
 * " Trust // us: documenting the relationship of students' trust in teachers to cognition, character, and climate // " is a research paper written by Michael Corrigan, Thelma Isaacs, and Thomas Klein in 2010 for The Journal of Research in Character Education. The authors had three main questions for conducting this research study: what is the relationship between a student's trust in teachers and one's self-perceived character, what is the relationship between a student's trust in teachers and one's sense of school community and victimization at school, and what is the relationship between a student's trust in teachers and one's academic self esteem, trust in principals, motivation to learn, and perceived teacher efficacy. They conducted their research by surveying 350 students from junior high and high school. The students took surveys covering a variety of topics on character ranging from concern for others, to self-perceived character elements and assessment of student moral performance. They also answered questions relating to their attitudes toward school and how they felt about their school environment. Their results seem to corroborate what I have believed to be true all along. "Tests of Research Question 2 show us that a greater trust in teachers is related to more positive perceptions of school climate. Tests of Research Question 3 shows us that this trust also holds a positive relationship with educational attitudes including motivation to learn, academic self esteem, trust in principals, and views of a teachers' ability to build character in students; all of these are essential for building the motivation to succeed in education (Corrigan)".


 * Respond:**
 * For the first couple resources, I chose to look at newspaper and journal articles that were a little shorter, more of an op / ed piece. Although these pieces were backed by facts and statistics, no original research was done for these articles. For this resource, I chose an article from a scientific journal with some actual research to back it up. At the end of the paper, they discuss No Child Left Behind, and how it has not succeeded the way that lawmakers had intended it to. By focusing on standardized tests and quantifiable data, politicians chose a way of measuring success that had numeric results; however, not everything taught in schools can be expresses by just numbers on a spreadsheet. As they say at the end of the article, "Ideally a new assessment might take a multidimensional approach and assessment of education that encompasses evaluating attitudes, climate, and other data that might provide a clearer picture of the true state of our schools and readiness of students. If such a day arrives, then educators will once again be able to get back to the goal that many set out to accomplish in their career; inspiring children."


 * APA Citation:**
 * Corrigan, M. W., Isaacs, T., & Klein, T. J. (2010). Trust us: documenting the relationship of students' trust in teachers to cognition, character, and climate. //Journal of Research in Character Education//, //8//(2), 61+. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com/ps/retrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&sort=RELEVANCE&inPS=true&prodId=EAIM&userGroupName=ucinc_main&tabID=T002&searchId=R1&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&contentSegment=&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm¤tPosition=1&contentSet=GALE|A284325116&&docId=GALE|A284325116&docType=GALE&role=

** Resource #4 **

 * Read:**
 * Mark Boynton's //The Educators Guide to Preventing and Solving Discipline Problems// is an excellent book for helping educators establish a culture of caring, acceptance, and respect in their classroom. Boynton points out several things that all teachers can do to help them create this kind of atmosphere in their classroom: communicate positive expectations to their students, consciously include all students evenly and fairly, remind students of your belief in their abilities, correct students in a positive and constructive manner, demonstrate caring, minimize stress and frustration on yourself and your students, and develop positive classroom pride.


 * Respond:**
 * I thought these were all great points; we need to constantly assess how we are interacting with the students. Sometimes we may think we are doing a great job in a particular area, but the students may perceive our performance differently, and that's what really matters. If we feel like we don't have favorites in class, but the students feel like we do, then we do. I think that for the most part, teachers don't try to have favorites, or exclude certain students, but these things tend to happen subconsciously, without realizing it. We, as educators, need to step back and evaluate our performance, and remind our students that we are there for their well-being, and an honest showing of care and concern will go a long way in gaining their trust. I believe that we don't have enough educators stressing caring in their classroom, and I believe that caring and trust need to be established before any genuine learning can begin.


 * APA Citation:**
 * Boynton, M. (2005). //The Educators Guide to Preventing and Solving Discipline Problems.// Association for Supervision & Curriculum Deve.

** 5. Sexuality Activity **
([])

I went through the UC online library and found an article from 2011 written by Maggie Gordon. The title of the article is "Report: Schools still insensitive to LGBT students", and it basically discusses the use of the term "that's so gay", and how as a culture we have become desensitized to its actual meaning. The author interviews a teacher, and she brings up the interesting point of how she sees it socially acceptable to be publicly homophobic, but it is social taboo to be openly racist. I never really thought about it in those terms, but I agree with her. As a society, we openly use remarks like "fag" and "that's gay" without thinking about what we're saying. However, we tend to be much more conscience of making remarks that might offend someone racially. It's an interesting double standard, and I admit that I'll say that something is gay when I mean that it's dumb or stupid, and even though I don't mean it do be offensive, I may very well be hurting someone unintentionally.
 * Describe your resource:**

http://bi.galegroup.com.proxy.libraries.uc.edu/global/article/GALE|A262575596/757c0b875835dcf706183886b97fec10?u=ucinc_main
 * Link to your specific resource:**

**Observation Site Information**
I observed the Mason High School homecoming game, as well as several social studies and history classes

** A. Site details: **

 * Name of site: William Mason High School
 * Link to site: www.masoncomets.org





__ ** B. Describe your setting ** __
I went to Mason High School's homecoming football game against Lakota West, as well as attended a few classes at Mason High School. I grew up in Mason, which has changed a lot in the last 20 years. When I was a child in elementary school, Mason was a farm town. The only reason people would come up towards the Mason area was for King's Island. However, after Proctor and Gamble built a large office complex in Mason, the area began to attract a more affluent crowd, and the community began to grow. Combined with the school districts' reputation for excellence, families began to flock to the area, which meant increased tax dollars for bigger and nicer schools. When I began school, Mason had two elementary schools, and a high school. By the time I graduated, they had built 4 more schools, and was bounced around to all of them as they shuffled different grades to different buildings. The population exploded, and by the time I graduated, I didn't know half of the kids that I graduated with.

While my family personally wasn't wealthy, the community I grew up in was, and those tax dollars built state of the art schools, so I did become accustomed to an upper-middle class lifestyle. Most of the kids I went to school with had parents with white collar, corporate jobs. Both parents tended to be educated, and it was a foregone conclusion that everyone in my school would go to college after high school. It wasn't as matter of //if// you would go to college, but //where//. Students here have access to the very best of everything, and I think a large majority of them take it for granted.

__** C. Describe what you did at the site (free-write/journal formatting) **__
The first place I went was the football game. High school football is pretty big in this area, and that Friday night was no exception. The place was pretty packed and we had to park pretty far away from the game. Other than the large crowd, the first thing that stood out to me was how each age group kind of had their own area or turf around the stadium. The youngest kids, probably under 10 years old, were with their parents, while the older kids had areas where they were hanging out. The junior high kids were hanging out underneath the bleachers, not paying attention to the game at all. Some kids were hanging out and talked, while some kids were playing pickup games of football on their own; it seemed kind of like recess. There also weren't any parents down there, except for people just passing from one side of the stadium to the other.
 * __ 1st visit (1st hour): __**

The older junior high kids and maybe high school freshman were down towards the end zone by the concession stands. While they weren't paying to the game either, at least they were out from under the bleachers. There were no games going on, it was purely social, like they were at a party or something. In fact, I would say that for this age group, the football games has nothing to do with the game, it was just a social event. They kids, for the most part, all looked dressed up, the girls had makeup on; this was definitely about socializing. You could also make out the approximate crowds as well; it was fairly obvious which kids are more popular, and which kids are less popular.

The big difference came between the junior high and younger high school students, and the upper classmen. Whereas the younger kids were standing around the sides hanging out with their friends, the juniors and seniors were in the stands, watching the game. They were also wearing a lot of school apparel, whereas the younger kids were wearing the fashionable clothes, trying to look good. The older students were packed into the stands, so there weren't really any cliques that I could see, other than the fact that the juniors and seniors were clearly separated; they each had their own area in the stands.
 * __1st visit (2nd hour):__**

I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that the upper classmen were the ones that were on the field and on the sidelines as cheerleaders. The varsity team rarely has freshman and sophomores on it, so the younger kids don't feel as much of a connection to the game as the older kids do. The older kids are cheering on their classmates, whereas the younger kids may not feel as closely related to the team because their friends aren't on it.

I attended a freshman history class which was taught by one of my old teachers when I was in school. He started class by reading an article he found online about Facebook, and how some kids think it's not cool anymore since their parents and families can have Facebook accounts. He then started asking kids about what they thought about Facebook, if they still used it, and how they felt about it. A lot of the kids had feedback; most kids acknowledged that they still use it, and that a lot of their parents use it too. They also expressed their displeasure at their parents ability to see their profiles and what they talk about with their friends. It was a good discussion, and the kids kind of ran with it on their own; he didn't have to poke and prod them to get them to talk. After that they settled into their lesson over the causes of WWII, so they went through a PowerPoint and he explained things while the students took notes. That pretty much took the rest of the bell, so I didn't notice a whole lot, other than that the students were actually paying attention; I didn't see anyone side conversations or anything going on.
 * __2nd visit:__**

The thing that impressed me most was that when he wanted the kids to talk, like with his article discussion, they talked; and when he wanted them to be quiet and take notes, they did. He definitely seemed to have control over his class, and the kids seemed to respect him. But I liked how he started with something that resonated with the kids and got them thinking right off the bat. I liked that approach a lot better than coming in and diving right into note-taking. He's a very energetic and enthusiastic person, and I think the kids feed off of that because they can tell that he's not just going through the motions.

I stayed around and basically sat in on the same class, just with a different group of kids. He started off by doing the same introduction by reading the article and asking the students what they thought about it. I saw a lot of the same things that I saw in the earlier class; students were commenting and talking about the subject without being forced by the teacher. I think the first class was probably a bit more conversational about the issue, but when you can get kids to talk on their own, it's a win. The he started the PowerPoint and the students took their notes. I did see one girl get her cell phone out briefly, but she wasn't on it that long and she put it away; the teacher didn't notice.
 * __4th visit:__**

I think we've all been in classes where no one is into it, no one is providing any feedback, and the teacher just ends up lecturing the whole time. No one wants to be in those classes; no one wants to feel like their time is being wasted. So I felt like there was good energy in the classroom right off of the bat. Not everyone has the same interest, so engaging some students who don't enjoy social studies or whatever subject you teach may be harder than some students who do enjoy the subject you teach. I think the key thing that I took away was showing enthusiasm for what you do, as well as making the content relational to the student. Articles on Facebook have nothing to do with the history of WWII, but it grabbed the students attention, and put them in the right frame of mind right from the beginning.

Since I was at the school, I decided to stop by another one of the teachers that I used to have. He was also a social studies teacher, and he was my wrestling coach as well, so I probably had the best relationship with him than I did with any other teacher. He was teaching the exact same freshman history class, but he had a much different style. Controlled chaos would probably be an understatement. He started class off with a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt, but he didn't really have discussion about it, he just explained what she meant by it, gave them something to think about, and went on with the lesson. He was also teaching the WWII history class, but he had the kids work off of a study guide. He is probably the most popular teacher in school, and he is involved with a lot of different student activities, and his classroom constantly has people coming and going. Students are up and moving around class, there's a lot of group work going on, which leads to a lot of talking amongst students; it's a lot to take in. He's very animated when he's teaching; he's all over the place, he's very loud, it's difficult to describe, but somehow he makes it work. Students love him, random kids are constantly coming to see him to talk, it's quite a scene.
 * __5th visit:__**

It was a good comparison to see how two different teachers taught the same lesson in different ways. While both teachers are clearly passionate about what they do; it manifests itself in different ways. Personally, I lean towards the style of the first teacher, I found his class to be a textbook example of how a classroom should be run, in my opinion. I just don't have the personality to have a classroom of controlled chaos, I would probably have a breakdown. But I think the point is to just be yourself, if I try to do things a certain way that may be out of character for me, I think kids can tell when someone is pretending to be something they're not, and I think that's the quickest way to lose their trust.

===__** D. Summarize and describe your experience in relation to the concepts in our textbook **__===

** Physical **
During school, I went to first and 2nd bells, so it was pretty early in the morning and most of the kids seemed pretty lethargic initially. After awhile, things got going and everyone seemed to wake up, but everyone seemed to just be handling their business. During the game, the moods were noticeably different. Kids were running around, the older kids were in the bleachers, screaming and cheering on the team, and everyone was socializing and having a good time.
 * What did you notice about the adolescent’s mood (p. 289)?**

At the school, in between bells, both of the teachers that I observed made it a point to go out into the halls and socialize a little bot with the kids. They would ask them how their day is going, ask about sports, just different things to make conversation. I thought it was nice because it shows a side other than just the educator in the class; it showed them as people too, and I think the kids responded to that.
 * What did you notice about the adolescent’s relationship with adults (p. 289)?**

When the issue of body image really stood out to me was at the football game; as I mentioned before, the freshman and sophomore-aged kids weren't even paying attention to the game; they were off to the side socializing the entire time. The football game really seemed to just be an excuse for a social gathering, and they way the kids were dressed reflected this. The girls were wearing shorter shorts, shorter than they could probably wear during school, and I noticed that a lot of the girls tied in a know around their waist, exposing their stomach area. It's a little different in boys; they certainly care about their appearance, but body image is really magnified when talking about girls.
 * What did you notice about the role of body image in adolescent behavior (p. 290)?**

Again, this is more something that I noticed at the game. Even the casual observer can distinguish which crowd or clique most of the kids belong to. There seemed to be a lot of intermingling amongst cliques, but within the same crowd. In other words, I noticed kids going back and forth between the same three or four groups all night long. Amongst the younger high schoolers, most of the cliques were mixed-gender, and as I said before, they were constantly going back and forth between one another.
 * What did you notice about peer relationships ( pp. 290-291)?**

The only thing I saw relating to substance abuse is when we arrived, as we were getting out of my car, a couple cars down there were a few kids who were smoking cigarettes. They may have been 18, I didn't ask them, but they looked like they were still in high school. The whole school campus is non-smoking, so I'm sure they were getting in a smoke before they went into the game. Other than that, I didn't really see anything.
 * What did you notice about substance use or substance related references (pp. 299-300)?**

** Physical Cognitive **
The biggest thing I saw in regards to decision making was along the rail. The stands to watch the football are elevated up a few steps, and there is a walkway running the length of the field, and then you can go up into the bleachers. It was pretty crowded so my wife and I stood along the rail so that we could see the game. After a couple of minutes, a police officer approached us and said we weren't allowed to stand along the rail because it's an emergency exit that can't be blocked. I told the police officer that that was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard, but even though I didn't agree with it, I moved away. What I noticed throughout the course of the game was that there were two or three groups of kids that repeatedly would get back on the rail, even after the cop told them not to. I agreed with the kids that it's a stupid rule, but I feel like when a cop tells you to do something, you do it. I just found it interesting that they chose to repeatedly challenge the officers authority.
 * What did you notice about decision making? (p.305-306)**

** Emotional **
In terms of emotional, I didn't really notice anything in the places that I observed.
 * Identity? (p.314-318)**

** Social **
A lot of these things intertwine, and I think gender, gender intensification, and and body image parallel each other a lot. Again, I noticed things about the girls a lot more than the boys, and specifically the early high school-age girls. The older girls didn't seem to care as much, at least in the context of a football game. In other situations I'm sure that they are probably dressed a little nicer.
 * Gender (p. 324)**

I saw a little bit of hand-holding among the early high school-age teens, but that was about it as far as intimacy goes. The older kids were more involved in the game, while the younger kids were playing games off to the side.
 * What do you notice about peer relations (intimacy? mutual understanding? self-disclosure?)? (p.326-327)**

As I mentioned before, there were definite cliques and crowds amongst the freshman and sophomore crowd. Kids were dressed similarly, they were intermingling with other groups that seemed to be similarly dressed, but it was very clear who was friends with who.
 * Cliques and Crowds? (p. 328)**

** Revisiting Your Curiosities **

 * W : What you want to know (inquiry questions) **

I always assumed that the obvious answer to this question was, "of course a positive teacher / student relationship is good for the development and performance of the student." I never really questioned that part, I really wanted to understand what kinds of things a teacher can do in order to build relationships with their students. I feel like I really only scratched the surface of this thing, and there are lot of different ways that I can take this in the future. Overall, the research, as well as my observations coincided, and there is a strong, positive correlation between strong teacher / student relationships, and the performance and development of students. Teachers need to consciously show their students that they genuinely care about them. This study only reaffirmed what I believed in the first place, and strengthens what I believe to be the heart of education: caring.
 * 1. Does developing a positive relationship with students really impact their performance in school as well as their development through adolescence?**


 * 2. Building Student/Teacher Relationship**



I wanted to do something that was a little more eye-popping and attention grabbing. I feel like most of the information should be gained from the presentation itself, not simply from reading the boxes on a presentation. As far as content, I prefer to keep the words to a minimum; there should be enough there that the person looking at the presentation understands the question, how you went about researching your question, and your findings, but most of the information should come from the presenter themselves. I think bullet points and visuals are best suited for the poster; they are there to enhance your presentation. The poster shouldn't be the presentation all by itself, so that is why I chose to format my poster the way I did.
 * 3. Creative Presentations**

The biggest thing that I took away from this was wanting to examine the relationship between the educator and the parent, and that affects the development and performance of the student. My initial thought would be that a strong relationship between the parents and the teacher would only benefit the student, but I would want to take it deeper than that. What kinds of things foster a strong parent / teacher relationship? Do parents react differently to a male teacher versus a female teacher? Do they have different expectations from male versus female teachers? How do negative parent / teacher relationships affect student development and performance? There are a lot of different aspects to this broad category and it definitely merits further exploration.
 * 4. What new questions emerge for you as a future teacher?**

Late Adulthood


 * Describe your Older Adult Project: **
 * Over the Thanksgiving break, I spent time with my grandparents. It was nice because growing up, I didn't really see my grandparents much. My mother doesn't have the greatest relationship with her mom, so as a result, we didn't see them very much. As my mom has gotten older, her relationship with her parents has improved, but they live in Florida for much of the year so I still don't see them very often. We had a pretty small Thanksgiving, as neither of my brothers could make it, my wife went to Chicago to see her family, and a lot of the extended family went to other family functions, so I was able to spend a lot of time talking to them.


 * As I mentioned previously, I don't get to spend a lot of time with them, so they miss out on a lot of things that happen with their grandchildren. As the book mentions (p. 492), children tend to stay in touch with their parents as they grow older, even if the live far apart, and my mom talks to her parents and keeps them updated, but I personally don't remember the last time I saw my grandparents; it's definitely been over a year. We got caught up, they asked about how school and work was going for me, how my wife was doing, but mostly we talked about my daughter, Hailee. She's almost two, and I think they've only seen her once or twice, so obviously she's changed a lot since they've last seen her. In talking about my daughter, we also talked about when I was younger, and about when my grandmother had my mother. This tends to happen a lot, as it does with many older people, but mainly it ends with some sort of lesson or advice, as the book discusses //knowledge-based// reminiscence (p. 476).
 * Cognitively, I see a big difference between my grandfather and my grandmother. My grandmother has had health issues over the last few years, and it has definitely taken a toll on her. When I talk to my grandfather, he can carry on a conversation, and for the most part he remembers things that we talk about. My grandmother often searches to find words, and she'll repeat herself (p. 464 -465). I notice the same types of differences physically as well. While my grandfather probably doesn't get around as quick as he used to, he walks unaided, and can get around on his own, whereas my grandmother needs some help moving around. She isn't in a wheelchair, but getting up and walking for long distances on her own is pretty much out of the question at this point. The book supports this, as it argues that older men tend to be much more physically independent than older women, because genetically, sturdier men have survived through the years (p. 453).