GETTING TO KNOW

Let there be no doubt, all secondary teachers benefit from the knowledge and beliefs shared by biologists and social scientists concerning adolescence.  That is, they, those teachers, should investigate what these scholars have discovered and speculated over concerning the span of years lodged between childhood and adulthood.  But no field of instruction can benefit more from such investigation than social studies and particularly civics education.

          This blog has in the past addressed adolescence and, with this posting, will begin a renewed reporting as to what the field of psychology and other fields have found.  One place to begin is cognitive development.  The cognitive capacities of young people from the ages of twelve to twenty-one increase significantly.[1]  Physical studies, including magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies, of the brain support this claim as one can detect the changes of the prefrontal cortex and how it functions regarding blood flows and other bodily processes.[2]

          Derived from such research, certain researchers and theorists have developed the dual systems model.  That model strives to explain various observable behavior patterns one can associate with adolescence.  Namely, the model focuses on risk-taking.  It posits that those behaviors result from a higher degree of sensitivity for rewards and a less than optimal level of impulse control and further, these patterns are “encouraged” by biological factors.[3]

          With that very brief overview of the biological, one can judge how productive more theoretical thinking has been concerning these young people’s changing character.  Beginning with Jean Piaget, prominent psychologists have added to what has become the current state of understanding regarding these perplexing years.  From cognitive development to emotional development, a rich literature exists. [4] 

          Psychological studies of cognitive development have centered on various aspects of that development.  They include attention,[5] memory,[6] pace of thinking,[7] the ability to organize thinking,[8] and the ability to reflect on one’s own thinking patterns.  This last topic will be emphasized in future postings.

          As for this posting, the purpose is to introduce the reader to the various concerns one can associate with adolescence.  This should be of interest to those who are charged with instructing mostly teenagers about civic matters.  It is felt here that such information for those educators can be relevant and useful. 

This posting is but the first of a series that will further develop this effort.  It contains some initial samples of a literature teachers can delve into to further strengthen the choices he/she makes in the designing and delivery of lessons.  In short, this series will aim to further enrich what this blog has already shared in this field of interest.

          The next posting will highlight the development of hypothetical and abstract thinking.  Useful is a familiarity with the concept, structure of knowledge.  Here is what this blog shared about this concept in a previous posting,

Knowledge, that is the knowing of truth, has been described as a structured, mental content.  That structure, commonly referred to as the structure of knowledge, has occupied the attention of some of the most prominent thinkers in the field of education.  That includes Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotski, and Jerome Bruner.  A more recent educator is H. Lynn Erickson.

A common description of this structure includes, in an order from the most concrete to the most abstract, the following:  facts, concepts, [topics,] principles or generalizations, and theory.  This progression indicates that facts, logically associated, form concepts; concepts form principles or generalizations, and, one can guess, principles or generalizations form theories.[9] 

One can add to this last category models or hypothesized explanations.  The reader, by reading this quote, has done his/her homework. 

Oh, to add a visual, he/she can click onto https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS861US861&sxsrf=ACYBGNSfu8yJD6BCNpZmkoV1Zzc6sVwpjg:1578364262168&q=structure+of+knowledge&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjjsLCJufDmAhWDZd8KHcT4BacQsAR6BAgJEAE&biw=1536&bih=754

or just “Google” structure of knowledge for various visual representations of how humans organize what they know.

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[1] Steven R. Smith and Leonard Handler, The Clinical Assessment of Children and Adolescents:  A Practitioner’s Handbook (New York, NY:  Routledge, 2007).  An overview of this book can be found online; see https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781315831473 , accessed January 5, 2020.

[2] Suparna Choudhury, Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, and Tony Charman, “Social Cognitive Development during Adolescence,” Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 1, 3 (December 2006), 165-174, accessed January 5, 2020, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2555426/ .

[3] B. J. Casey, Rebecca M. Jones, and Leah H. Somerville, “Braking and Accelerating of the Adolescent Brain, Journal of Research on Adolescence, 21, 1 (March 1, 2011), 21-33, accessed January 5, 2020, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3070306/ .

[4] An instructive review of the various theoretical approaches to this field of interest (behavioral, information processing, and constructivist), can be found in the textbook, Educational Psychology:  Theory and Practice.  See Robert Slavin, Educational Psychology:  Theory and Practice (12^th Edition) (Boston, MA:  Allyn and Bacon, 2018).

[5] For example, Andrew R. Schiff and Irwin J. Knopf, “The Effect of Task Demands on Attention Allocation in Children of Different Ages,” Child Development (JSTOR), 56, 3 (June 1985), 621-630.  This study compares attention capacity between 9-year-olds and 13-year-olds.

[6]  For example, Daniel P. Keating, “Cognitive and Brain Development,” in Handbook of Adolescent Psychology, eds. R. M. Lerner and L. Steinberg (Portsmouth, NH:  Heinemann, 2004), 45-84.  This work found association between reasoning and memory.

[7] For example, Robert V. Kail and Emilio Ferrer, “Processing Speed in Childhood and Adolescence:  Longitudinal Models for Examining Developmental Change,” Child Development (SRCD), November 3, 2007, abstract accessed January 6, 2020, https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2007.01088.x .  This is a review study of various longitudinal models that purport to describe change in processing speed among children and adolescents.

[8] For example, Ann L. Brown, “The Development of Memory:  Knowing, Knowing about Knowing, and Knowing How to Know,” Advances in Child Development and Behavior, a series of books, Volume 10 (1975), 103-152, abstract accessed January 6, 2020, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0065240708600099?via%3Dihub .  The focus of this work is to look at how memory affects self-reflection over what is known by the individual child and adolescent.

[9] Robert Gutierrez, “It’s Not All Good or Bad,” Gravitas:  A Voice for Civics, October 24, 2017, accessed January 6, 2020, https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2017/10/its-not-all-good-or-bad.html .