T2P 3 Hypothesis

*Social Hiatus in the Middle School*
Youtube Video:
Middle School Gossip

If a student’s social status or relationship with other peers is not healthy then the student will be easily distracted from their schoolwork. For example, in the video “Middle School Gossip,” middle school girls expressed the social issues that were consuming their day-to-day lives. Each student discussed different social predicaments they were in including ex-boyfriends, trying to impress, puberty, fights, friends, and clothing style and mentioned compared to schoolwork, social life is much more important. In the same video, the 7th grade teachers expressed the student’s ideals. One 7th grade teacher in the video said, “Until you work through the social issues, until you work through the like distractions, there is no point in the academics, because they will always be distracted.” According to Maslow, some of these children’s lower staged needs are not being met. The issues facing these students touch upon safety, social belonging and security. Maslow would contend that if you don’t help those students fulfill the lower levels of needs, they would not be able to move up to self-esteem and desire to learn school material. As a teacher, it will be imperative to create an environment for my students to come into to feel like they belong, and a relationship that opens up trust and care. By creating a positive, welcoming environment, students who’s lower level needs are not met, may be able to look at the classroom as a way for satisfying those lower level needs, allowing them to flourish in their creativity to learn and grow academically.
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*Oppression of our Youth Voice*
Youtube video:
Finding Our Turf: Youth Voice

If students feel as though their opinions are not being respected, their culture is not important, and they do not matter to higher forms of authority, then they will feel oppressed and invaluable to society, building a mindset of distrust, helplessness, and anger. These ideas were expressed in the video, “Finding Our Turf: Youth Voice.” Many young people expressed their feelings of frustration with adults because they did not feel as though adults valued their opinions or ideas and that no matter what they said they would not be listened to since adults always discriminated against younger ages. Nel Noddings would say that this mindset of youth could be detrimental to their growth as individuals because adults of power are not talking the time to build relational-care with the teens. This is therefore demonstrating that teenagers are not an important part of a growing and dynamic society, adding to their feelings of being oppressed. As a teacher I can understand how it is important show students that their unique identities do matter on a larger level and that every opinion matters. Showing your students that you respect and value their thoughts help provide them with a foundation of trust and care to grow as an individual. By showing students the significance of their own voices I am showing them how to build positive perspectives of themselves.

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*Teaching for the Youth*
Youtube Video: Whole Brain Teaching

If students participate in student-centered learning through application of “whole brain teaching,” then they will be more likely to comprehend the material and participate. For example, in the video, “Whole Brain Teaching High School Math,” students mirrored their teacher’s explanation of slopes to the peers. Through mirroring the description of positive and negative slopes, the students reinforced what they were learning and showed a quicker understanding when the teacher assessed them. Whole brain teaching, as showed in the video, helps students stay on task and participate. Lev Vygotsky would say that Whole Brain Teaching is a way that the teacher brings a student to a higher level of cognitive development by guiding each student in the process of application and thinking. As a teacher I understand that students each learn in multiple ways such as visual, audio, verbal, and hands-on and direct instruction will not accommodate all the learning styles in the classroom. For students to be able to excel in the classroom they have to be given different tools for thinking and learning. Whole brain teaching takes direct instruction and opens it up to a more student-centered approach, where the students are doing full participation in the understanding and teaching of the lesson.