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In this article we will discuss about:- 1. Motor Development in Adolescence 2. Emotional Development in Adolescence 3. Social Development 4. Mental Development.
Motor Development in Adolescence:
There is simultaneous growth and development in physical, emotional, social and mental dimension of a child. The important feature is that there is proportionate and integrated development at all stages.
The psychological changes, in themselves, may not account adequately for the psychological changes of adolescence, they are of sufficient importance to merit careful consideration. Some psychological changes of adolescence are characteristics only of this period. Other changes happen at other periods as well. Changes of the latter type include decrease in pulse rate, rise in blood pressure, increase in total respiratory volume, and diminution of basal metabolism. Physiological change which uniquely characterize adolescence fall into three categories- sexual changes, changes in skeletal dimensions and changes in body chemistry.
Sexual Changes of Adolescence:
Maturation of sex organs and development of sex power are the most impressive physiological characteristics of adolescence. Pubescence and Puberty describe the period and process within which sexual maturity is achieved. We should take careful note of their respective meaning. Pubescence is an approximately two-year period of physiological change which characterizes the biological onset of adolescence and culminates in a person’s reaching puberty.
Pubescence is marked by maturation of primary and secondary sex characteristics, related change in glandular balance and body proportions, and a spurt in physical growth. Puberty is the point in biological development when marked indicators of sexual maturity appear. Puberty in girls is indicated by their first menstruation.
In boys, the indicator is the presence of live sperm cells in seminal discharges. However, since sperm cells cannot be detected by unaided eye and boys’ genitals are so obvious, mere growth of boys’ genitals often is considered an indication of puberty. For girls the average age of puberty is slightly under 13 and for boys it ranges from 13 ½ to 14 ½. However, the range in reaching puberty is at least from 9 to 17 in girls and from 11 to 18 in boys.
The sexual changes can be classified into categories:
1. Primary Sex Characteristics:
Those features of an organism which are most immediately associated with procreation and reproduction are called primary sex characteristics. In boys they are penis and testes; in girls, ovaries, fallopian tubes, uterus and vagina. As puberty is approached, genitals of both sexes make rapid growth and development. In boys this growth is quite apparent and is indicative of approaching manhood. Girls’ sexual organs grow in parallel fashion but, since there are not so obvious, menstruation, a secondary sex characteristic, is usually considered the indicator of puberty.
Anthropologists are acquiring more and more evidence that a period of some months usually elapses between a girls’ first menstruation and her attainment of the capacity to become a mother. Nevertheless tradition persists, and people commonly connect the first menstrual period with the advent of female fertility.
2. Secondary Sex Characteristics:
Girls and boys manifest other sex characteristics commonly labelled secondary. A change in girls’ figures occur— breasts develop and the pelvis widens. Girls also acquire fatty deposits in breasts and on hips, and hair appears in pubic regions and under arms. Boys, too, develop pubic and auxiliary hair but in addition to this they have their own secondary sexual characteristics. They rapidly develop hair on limbs and trunk, hairlines of their heads develop a wedge shape, facial whiskers become pigmented, and voices drop in pitch. Boys also broaden through the shoulders and acquire larger chest cavities. A normally proportioned girl takes on an hourglass shape while a normal boy becomes the shape of a carrot.
Changes in Body Chemistry:
In addition to glands like the liver and sweat glands which have ducts to carry away their secretions, a human body also has ductless glands, or endocrines, which secrete hormones directly into the circulatory system. Special changes in size and function of some endocrines are an important aspect of the physiology of adolescence. The endocrines most closely related to physiological changes of adolescence are thymus glands, pituitary glands, and gonads, i.e., tests and ovaries.
The Thymus Gland:
The “gland of childhood,” is located in the upper breast and is associated with the changes of pubescence. In the years just prior to adolescence this gland diminishes in size and activity. This is a part of a shift of glandular balance which begins at 9 or 10 in girls and 11 or 12 in boys. The shift takes several years to run its course. The interior branch of the pituitary gland at the base of the brain also plays an important part in change of glandular balance.
It becomes more and more active in the period just preceding puberty, and its function is related to the rapid growth spurt of adolescence. Secretions of various endocrines or ductless glands interact; thus, the anterior pituitary probably tends to energize some other glands. Normal physiological growth and development depend in part upon properly time’s actions of pituitary and gonadal hormones.
Before the onset of puberty, secretions of the anterior pituitary glands stimulate growth of gonads. Female gonads produce, in addition to ova or egg cells, the female sex hormone, estrogen. Male gonads produce, in addition to sperm cells, the male sex hormone, and androgen. Estrogen influences growth of female sex organs and development of girls’ secondary sex characteristics and contributes to sex drive.
Androgen seems to speed growth of male sex organs, initiates and regulates development of secondary sex characteristics, and stimulates boys’ sex drive. There is a difference in glandular activity of an adolescent male and of an adolescent female. However, the activities are not utterly dissimilar. Both androgen and estrogen are found in both sexes, but androgen is more highly developed and more active in males and estrogen in females.
Growth in body structure, height weight; bones and glands secretions emerges needs and new behaviour among children. The growth of bones changes the selection of the body.
Changes in Skeletal Dimensions:
Sexual changes of adolescence are accompanied by noticeable modification of body height, weight and proportions. Both boys and girls manifest a pubescent growth spurt about six months before the advent of puberty. However, the spurt in girls average about one to two years ahead of that in boys.
The rate and span of changes in growth during adolescence are far from uniform. However, growth curves plotted from averages of different ages of the two sexes tend to obliterate individual spurts and abatements of growth. When one finds the average heights and weights of successive age groups, they form a pattern of gradual increase.
However, studies of the increments of growth of individuals show that each has a period of sharp acceleration during pubescence. Some adolescents have been known to grow 6 to 7 inches in height and to gain 20 to 30 pounds in a single year. Since youth each pubescent growth spurts at varying ages, growth changes tend to compensate for one another. When they are handled statistically, the astounding changes in individuals are concealed.
Not only does a person reach his pubescent growth spurt at his own particular time, but different organs and different parts of the body grow and develop at different speeds and their curves of growth take different forms. Growth of organic systems and other physiological dimensions may lag behind or overtake growth in stature. A very tall boy of 15 may appear to be a man and still have relatively undeveloped genitals.
Psychological Development and Tasks of Adolescent:
There is a close relationship between motor performance and other traits. Popularity in adolescence is closely related to physical strength and skill in athletic activities than to intelligence and school achievement. The cluster of physical traits as physical skills, bravery and strength show a high relationship in social situation and heterosexual relations. These findings emphasize the importance of physical education and recreational activities for adolescents. The importance of physical strength is more is an aggressive military culture than in a culture that is intellectually more sophisticated.
The physical strength and athletic ability play an important role in the development of an individual’s personality. The boys who have poor athletic abilities have poor social adjustment. They develop tension and conflict arising from inferiority.
Physical growth strengthens body to perform certain tasks which require skills and strength. The period of adolescence acquire physical maturity which develops potentialities and capacity for performing tasks. These tasks are also termed as developmental tasks of adolescents.
Developmental Task of Adolescents:
The developmental task of adolescents refers to the needs of adolescent. The concept of developmental task was developed by Havighurst. It stands midway of child centred and teacher-centred education. It stands between basic needs and theory of determination of needs by the society.
It is a recognized fact that in every culture of the world, it is possible to learn certain skills and behaviour at some stage which makes the adjustment in society more adequately. Every culture of the world sets a number of tasks for the successful adjustment of the individual in the society.
The concept of a developmental synthesis implies an objective toward which the synthesis moves. The student has certain ends that are special for adolescents which are called developmental tasks. These are inescapable requirements imposed by the person himself or by society. They mean that he must possess or acquire an acceptable level in certain kinds of competencies according to his age, sex and situation. Failure to achieve competency has a crippling effect on further personality development along the dimension in question. Failures in competency achievement, characteristics of a given developmental period, are difficult to make-up at a later stage.
Havighurst proposed a system of developmental tasks for American adolescents. He described in detail the developmental process and its relation to educational objectives.
Developmental task has been defined by Havighurst as:
“A developmental task is a task which arises at or about a certain period in the life of the individual, successful achievement of which leads to his happiness and success with late task while failure leads to unhappiness in the individual, disapproval by the society and difficulty with later tasks.”
The following are the developmental task of adolescents:
1. Achievement and more mature relation with agreement of both sexes. Maintain permanent friendship.
2. Achieving a masculine or feminine role to perform tasks.
3. Accepting one’s physique and using the body effectively.
4. Achieving assurance of economic independence.
5. Achieving emotional independence of parents and other adults.
6. Selecting or preparing for an occupation, keen for the job.
7. Preparing for marriage and family life and takes interest.
8. Developing intellectual skills and concepts for necessary civic competency for finding place in the society.
9. Desiring and achieving socially responsible behaviour.
10. Acquiring a set of values as a guide to behaviour according to the norms of society.
Educational Implications of Physical Changes of Adolescence:
Maslow’s hierarchical theory of needs is helpful to over needs of adolescence. At this stage of adolescence higher needs are also developed among them.
These can be broadly classified among three categories or levels:
1. Lower needs or physiological needs of adolescence.
2. Social and psychological needs of adolescence.
3. Higher needs or ego or self-actualization to know one self.
The parents and teacher should know the needs of the adolescents and provide the situations or facilities to satisfy their needs otherwise it-will lead to frustration. The concept of need and development of task of adolescence are highly related or interdependent on each other. The tasks of adolescents help in satisfactory needs. Thus a teacher has to make provision for the developmental task.
The following are the educational implications:
(1) The concept of developmental task is very helpful in specifying the course content and its objectives in definite terms. They serve as guidelines to the individual. He can know in advance what the society expects from him at a given age. Parents of young children can be guided in teaching their children skills and other social competencies which the society expects from them.
(2) The second important purpose which the concept of the developmental task services is to show the individual what lies ahead and what will be expected when he reaches the next stage of development. This develops purposefulness in the effort of the individual by providing definite goal.
(3) The concept of developmental task is also very helpful to the teacher to be prepared to avail the opportunity and preparing appropriate atmosphere to achieve a development task. Educational efforts can be tuned with the developmental characteristics of an individual. The educational efforts will not go waste because now they may be organized at the appropriate moment.
(4) Adolescence has their ‘ego’ of self-consciousness. A teacher can make use of their ego for assigning certain tasks which are challenging for them. They have the physical strength, skill and bravery to perform any difficult task assigned to them, but their ego should be at stake. They take it as a challenge. The ego-involvement will provide (self) motivation for the problem solving task to the adolescents. It will help them for higher learning of reflective in nature.
Emotional Development in Adolescence:
In order to understand and nature of adolescent emotional behaviour is very important and also very difficult to take account of the fact that the feelings, he has in responses to what happens in the world about him are thus influenced by his inner state of the adolescent. The emotional behaviour is known as anger, fear, hostility, vindictiveness, pleasure, love, affection, laugh and humour.
Meaning and Definitions of Emotions:
The word emotion has been derived from the Latin word emovere “to move out”. Emotion may be defined as the stirred up condition of the organism involving internal and external changes in the body. An emotion is disturbed state of organism- an emotion includes visceral changes due to increased activity of autonomic nervous system and an emotion originates within the physiological situation.”
It is expressed in love, fear, anger, laughter and tears etc., it involves, feeling of jubilation or depression and impulse to action and awareness of perception. Basically human beings are creatures of feelings or emotions. Our emotions control our behaviour. Emotion in the organism is a dynamic internal adjustment that operates for the satisfaction and welfare of the individual.
Adolescents and Emotions:
Emotions emerges since the infancy stage but at the adolescence period heightened emotionality. There are various reasons for the emotionality of adolescents. Emotions have both type of effect on their life and career. Emotions provide the strength to the child for performing the heroic deeds and sacrificed their lives for the cause of nation as well as for their society.
Adolescence is marked by heightened emotionality. The history of world is full of the heroic deeds of adolescents, when many adolescents sacrificed their lives at the altar of freedom of the country. Heightened emotionality is evident from nail biting tension, conflicts, quarrels with parent’s sibling and class-mates, etc.
The following are the main cause of emotionality of adolescents:
(1) Needs of Adolescents,
(2) Social expectations,
(3) Difficulty in adjustment with opposite sex,
(4) Religious conflicts,
(5) School conditions,
(6) Conflicts with family members,
(7) Vocational problems.
(1) Needs of Adolescents:
The needs of adolescents are different from the childhood because they have need exhibition which require money to have new style of dress and other body building requirements. They become emotionally disturbed when they fail to meet these requirements and recreational demands.
(2) Social Expectations:
When the child becomes an adolescent, society and parents expect him to think and act like an adult for which he is not physically and intellectually matured. The adolescent fails to decide his status in social settings and failure to meet social expectations results in emotional disturbances and failure to adjust to new environment. The adolescent because of shift of roles has to make new adjustment in different social situation. He has to leave his accustomed patterns of childhood. He has to learn in short period new adjustment.
(3) Difficulty in Adjustment to Opposite Sex:
We observe that in later childhood, there is little interaction between boys and girls. In adolescence there is attraction towards the member of opposite sex but the adolescent is not able to understand the correct social behaviour, how to make friendship with the members of opposite sex. These problems create emotional tensions in him. He has to meet new social situation which disturbs him.
(4) Religious Conflicts:
Every child is trained in a special setting of religious beliefs and values. The child without questioning the authenticity of the teachings of his parents obeys them but with the advancing age, he critically examines the beliefs and starts questioning the teachings of his parents. This leads to conflicts in his mind.
The Indian society is divided into several sub-groups, each following its own religious beliefs. One caste hates the other. The adolescent is very sensitive to the feelings of hatred, partiality and nepotism in the society.
There is a great gulf between the values and teachings preached by the school and their actual practice in the society. The adolescent is disturbed by all these actions.
(5) School Conditions:
School failures cause heightened emotionality so much so that many adolescents commit suicide, leave home and sometimes give up education.
(6) Conflicts with Family Members:
Adolescents come in conflicts with their friends and family members who fail to understand them. Too strict discipline, restriction on movements and lack of understanding their interests or point of views are the chief source of emotional disturbances.
(7) Vocational Problems:
The most pressing problem for Indian adolescent is the future vocation after schooling. When he finds many adults roaming on the road without any means of livelihood, he is disturbed and permanent anxiety develops in his mind. Particularly those adolescents, who come from poor families and are the supporters of their families, are more disturbed.
Nature of Emotions of Adolescents:
The emotions which have been enumerated in the above paragraphs emerge from the stage of infancy, but these are heightened at the stage of adolescence. The intensity, form of expression of emotions change among adolescents. They have the capacity to suppress and control their emotions. When the emotions are suppressed by the adolescent, these may cause new symptoms.
Symptoms:
Excessive nail biting, thumb sucking, biting the lips. Scratching the nose; pulling or twisting the hair, scratching the head; picking the face, touching the face with the hand, learning the face on the hands and rocking legs, etc.
Use of other mechanisms as aggression, in attention, shyness, withdrawal and hyperactivity, also indicate emotional disturbance.
The teacher can identify with these abnormal actions and behaviours in adolescents in his class. They need individual guidance and sometime counselling to release their tensions and satisfy their needs and requirements.
These abnormal symptoms are caused by the emotions because they are no simple emotions but have the following characteristics:
(1) Complexity of Emotions:
By the age of child reaches in adolescence, he experiences a number of emotional upheavals and storms. His emotional development becomes complex by the experiences he gets in his environment. We cannot understand and adolescent by the overt emotional expression, but we have to fathom deep to understand him. The adolescent learns to conceal his true emotional experience.
(2) Developmental of Abstract-Emotion:
Generally, children show emotional expression in relation to concrete objects but adolescents can express their emotional feelings in relation to objects which are abstract or which are not present in concrete form.
(3) Emotional Feelings are Widened:
As the child grows he starts taking account of past and imagines of future and thus we can expect him to become more patient and able to tolerate delay. He gets pleasure from what he expects in future. The sphere of his social relation increases. He starts appreciating elder and younger people. Sometimes he is emotionally attached with a hero of his choice who may be a historical figure, politician, heroine or hero and other leader according to whose principles he wants to shape his life.
(4) Expansions of Emotions:
Emotional development begins from the home environment of the infant and during adolescence it is expanded beyond home and neighbourhood. These loyalties are identified with peers and leaders of various fields.
(5) Reality in Emotional Experiences:
Now, the child enters the period of reality. An adolescent can perceive and appreciate people around him. He recognizes the weakness and strength of one’s character.
(6) Level of Aspiration:
Adolescence is the period of life when one has high hopes and aspirations for his future life. Some adolescents work realistically to achieve their expectations and others do little to realize their hopes, they remain in illusion, and in the world of day dreams and flights of fancy which make them unrealistic.
(7) Tendency of Aloneness:
The adolescents develop a feeling of aloneness. Sometimes, they like to remain alone in their home.
(8) External Feelings:
The adolescent learns to externalize his feelings in the various situations external environment, he moves in. He can project his feelings on others.
(9) Increased Compassion:
Compassion means to enter his own feelings and appreciate the feelings of others. Compassion is the single quality which enables a man to achieve highest peak and the deepest reach in his search for self-fulfillment. Compassion means fellowship of feeling. It denotes an ability to enter into kinship with the feelings and impulses involved in any sort of emotional experience whether it be joy or sorrow.
(10) Bearing of Tensions:
Adolescents develop competencies to bear the tensions in different social situations. The emphasis is on self-control. The adolescent feels a kind of inner freedom, freedom to feel and experience, in an intimate personal way.
(11) Capacity for Sharing Emotions:
The adolescents develop the concern about the feelings of others and an increased capacity for sharing emotional experiences with others. In childhood, children are not able to control their emotions. Sharing of emotional experiences reaches its fullest development when an adolescent is able to relate himself to another person in such a way that the satisfaction of the person is just as important as his own. It means he begins to love his neighbours as much as himself.
(12) Development of Ego:
It is the most important reason to heighten the emotionality in adolescence. The ego is developed among adolescents which raises their level of aspirations or expectations. If their ego is stack, it amounts tension in them. It provides strength in adolescence which help them for performing heroic deeds or herculean tasks.
Education and Emotions:
It is not enough for a teacher or student of educational psychology to understand the nature and type of emotions, but he must know the devices for controlling and training emotions. The period of adolescence is known as strain and stress stage. The emotions are heightened at this stage they cause problems in them. Thus, the emotions are very important developments of adolescents. Emotions have profound effects on the life of an individual.
These effects are of two types:
(1) Good effects of emotions, and
(2) Bad effects of emotions.
The emotions have both type of effects negative as well as positive. The emotions also have adverse or damaging effects on the behaviour of the individual. The cost damaging effect of emotions is on the health or physique of an individual, constant emotional pressure and tension disturbs learning ability and may cause lack of sleep, headache, fatigue, lack of appetite and restlessness. Negative emotions disturb or damage the total personality of an individual.
The positive emotions are essential for total personality development.
The following are main sources of positive emotions:
1. Source of enjoyment, recreation, laughter and humour.
2. Source of motivation, love, affection and curiosity.
3. Source of strength and endurance of body.
4. Source of ego and the attainment, happiness and pleasure.
Thus, developing proper emotions and controlling them is very essential objective of education during adolescence. Meeting social demands as well as to eliminate the damaging effects of the emotions on attitudes, habits, behaviour and physical well-being, control of emotions is essential control does not mean repression but it means learning to approach a social situation with rational attitude and repression of those emotions which are socially unacceptable. The classroom teacher can play an important role to reduce pressure that interferes with the child’s emotional development.
A teacher has the knowledge and skill for controlling and training the emotions of the students.
He should have the awareness and skills of the following functions:
1. Proper Understanding of Emotions of Adolescent:
Parents and teachers should change their attitude towards adolescents. They should provide proper environment for the expression of pent-up feelings. Fair treatment, sympathy, cooperation and freedom of action within a reasonable limit should be given to adolescent and unnecessary restriction should not be imposed. A variety of interests should be developed to avoid frustration. Teach the adolescents to relax by providing opportunity for hobbies, curricular activities, catharsis through play, free discussion and dramas, etc.
The emotions are developed during the period of adolescence. The emotion emerge from the stage of infancy but there is increase in the intensity and forms of emotions during adolescence, but are very important to understand the nature of development of adolescents and their problems.
The common emotional patterns in adolescents are as follows:
(a) Love and affection,
(b) Joy, pleasure and delight,
(c) Worry of imaginary fear,
(d) Home worries are real problems,
(e) Fear of material objects or animals,
(f) Anger is learnt from environment:
(i) Failure of material object.
(ii) Teasing by teacher, parents, elders and peers and unfair treatment.
(iii) Being unfairly treated.
(iv) Sarcastic remarks, encroachment of his rights by brothers or sisters.
(v) Thwarting of self-assertion—insulting remarks, unwelcome advice, not being invited to a party and failure in activities undertaken.
2. Proper Training for Controlling Emotions:
Parents, teachers and social workers may use devices and methods to control fears of inadequacy in various situations by developing competencies and skills in some activity in which adolescents are interested to create self-confidence which helps to meet different situations of life boldly. The teacher should emphasize the interpersonal relationship for the facilitation of learning.
3. Guidance and Counselling for the Problems of Adolescent:
Adolescence is a period when individual is overwhelmed by a number of simultaneous developments, therefore to meet this situation proper guidance is needed in this period.
It has been observed that adolescents become neurotic due to their tensions and worries. They develop some abnormal symptoms. A teacher should locate such students and counselling should be given for removing the abnormality.
4. Development of Resistance among Adolescents:
Adolescents should be encouraged to examine critically the causes of their failures and frustration etc., and teacher should develop resistance to frustrations. Thwarting should be properly rationalized.
5. The Role of Teacher in Controlling Emotions:
The teacher and the school can encourage the development of affective maturity in adolescents by providing them:
(a) Skills that will enable the child to deal effectively with the threatening aspects of his environment.
(b) The teacher should provide in class and school an atmosphere that permits the adolescent to admit the feelings he is experiencing.
(c) School should provide identification of proper model and constructive ways of expressing feelings. Adolescents should be trained in self-control of emotions. They should be provided with a variety of opportunities to participate in activities leading towards the acceptance of responsibility.
(d) An important method which a classroom teacher can encourage is to help the students to express their emotions in constructive ways. Students should be trained to express their emotions to others in whom they have full confidence. Verbalization of pent-up emotional feelings releases mental tension and as emotions are put into words, they become diffused, less intense and manageable. The teacher must develop a clear recognition of the desirability of achieving free and more constructive expressions of emotions which will result in progress toward the desired goal.
(e) The teacher may organize picnics, excursions and educational tours of his students to provide them opportunities to understand each other and come closer. This will resolve many problems of adolescents which are created by lack of communication among the members of the class and school.
(f) The teacher should deal the problems of adolescents sympathetically. He should maintain the rapport with adolescents. They have the feeling of hero worship at this stage. The teacher should try to occupy this place for the adolescents.
Limitations in Controlling the Emotions:
It is not possible to control or to prevent the occurrence of emotions such as anger, fear, aggression, distrust and other form of emotional distress. However, in everyday life such emotional reactions frequently are aggravated by interferences, threats, examples and various forms of intimidation that could be avoided. The pleasure and satisfaction are important among other things to give child an opportunity to enter into activities that provide an appropriate challenge to his growing abilities.
It is important to help the adolescent to overcome remedial weakness, to help him by degree to acquire understanding of his emotions and competence and skill in coping with problems in his environment that cause anger by reason of his inability to solve them, or that cause fear by reason of his actual or imagined inability to deal with situations which he considers as a threat to his safety.
Social Development in Adolescence:
In adolescence quite often the development of primary and secondary sex characteristics receives major attention. However, biological development of human being is always paralleled by sociological development. The radical changes in an adolescent’s body are accompanied by equally significant changes in his relationships with group with which he is identified. Changes in social attitudes parallel changes in physical structure. An adolescent, looking forward to and interesting himself in responsibilities of adult life, stands in sharp contrast to his earlier circumscribed, self-centered personality which existed when his mental horizons were relatively low and his bodily strength was limited.
Adolescence is not by nature a period of storm and stress, as Margaret Mead’s studies of Samoan youth so well demonstrate. The values of adults in western culture lead it to be one. Western culture patterns (expect those of Scandinavia and perhaps a few other European countries) are such that adolescents tend to find themselves in social environments full of continuing restrictions and frustrations for which they are inadequately prepared and commonly have no satisfactory solution. Although parents and other grownups have definite ideas about how the transition from childhood to adulthood should proceed, usually these ideas seem rather nonsensical to adolescents, who must accomplish the change.
In light of the fact that adolescents consider dealings with their own age group signally important, the transition to adulthood can be very painful and difficult. Adolescents must find their place in a society which is composed not only of their own peers but also adults to whom they, as citizens, job holders, members of society, parents and voters must adjust.
They must learn to be socially acceptable, to accommodate themselves to folkways, customs, and mores of their group. Furthermore, regardless of how much adult patterns of thinking and acting are out of tune with adolescent peer group ideals and values, adolescents are expected to adjust to those patterns.
(1) Peer Group Relationships:
In modern society informally organized groups, cliques, or gangs become especially widespread and important during adolescence. Peoples of all ages draw in large measure upon their fellows for their thoughts, emotions, and modes of behaviour. But as youth move into adolescence, peer groups become even more important to them. Whereas, during middle childhood, peer group influence supplements that of home and school during adolescence it takes priority over, and may even supplant, influence of these institutions. Information groups of adolescent age mates often become the very centre of a youth’s experience with personal identity and stability.
Adolescents will stake almost everything to win and hold approval of their age mates. Frequently, they are well aware of the great importance of age mate group of their lives. In 1955 Rosen found that, for the group of youngsters he studied, peer groups tended to be more important than adults in influencing choices. He stated that, in case where parents and peer group had conflicting attitudes in regard to issues examined in the study, adolescents more often agreed with their peers than with their parents.
Groups with which adolescents identify themselves influence almost everything they do. Peer groups influence speech, moral values, clothing habits, and modes of eating. Some by-products of group interaction are special catchwords, nicknames, jargon, and ambitions. Group approvals is so alluring to adolescents that they become virtual slaves to peer’s group customs and seem bound by certain peer group standards, ideals; he too will be little them. For the time being, peer groups become dominant reference groups which, to a considerable degree, regulate attitude, interests, activities, and aspirations. Consequently, within a peer group-centered setting, parents and adults may become annoyances in any aspect of living which are vitally important to youth of adolescent age.
Identification with peer groups is not all a bed of roses. Since, an American adolescent usually identifies with more than one group; he is subjected to conflicting loyalties. His roles are different in the various groups and not all are equally attractive. Yet, while he is with each group he must show unstinted enthusiasm. A group of future farmers-a peer-attend and agricultural field day. The events are directed by adults, many of whom smoke freely throughout the day.
However, the Future Farmers Act as if they and cigarettes are perfect strangers. The same boys away from school in a car together probably smoke cigarettes, almost to a man. Furthermore, those some boys will manifest three different languages depending upon whether, at the moment, they are Future Farmers, Sunday school students, or pals ‘dragging the main’ on Saturday night.
(2) Relations with Adult Society:
An Adolescent not only must accept an altered body and the necessity of adjusting to new motor and sensory patterns but must adapt himself to a world of people and situations in which he must play a new and different role. Although, at least on a superficial level, he tends to feel competent to make these adjustments, his family is not so sure of his ability. Thus, there are many possibilities for conflict and misunderstanding.
Adolescents assert desire for independence more aggressively than ever before, but economically and vocationally they are not yet able to escape from dependence on their homes. Consequently many adolescents in present-day society regard themselves are rather useless and resent conditions which make them that way. If society offered them adequate opportunities to participate in production endeavors, it is rather doubtful that they would turn to a ‘hot rod’ type of activity for their basic satisfaction.
Adult-adolescent conflict is a common phenomenon in western societies, where, to a large degree, expediency determines patterns of thought and behaviour. This situation gives rise to many inconsistencies and contradictions in adult society making it doubly difficult for an adolescent to understand and adjust. When practices and values sanctioned by adults of a family and those sanctioned by an adolescent’s peer groups point in opposite directions, conflict is certain to arise.
In such situations, youth, in an attempt to maintain some degree of stability, gravitate back toward one another and their peer groups. Adult-adolescent peer group the amount of difficulty adolescents encounter in relating themselves to their peer and adult groups largely determines the degree to which the adolescent period is characterized by storm and stress.
(3) Growing into Adulthood Adolescents:
Frequently continue to think of themselves as children beyond the time when it is most effective for them to do so or the time which is justified by their biological development. Their resulting behaviour leads adult associates to wonder why they do not “grow up an act their age.” Only rarely is an adolescent suddenly conscious that he is “grown up.”
He lacks the evidence of some crowing event, like the rites which initiate boys and girls into adulthood in certain primitive cultures. Even changes in the way others treat him so gradual that he is scarcely aware of them and would have great difficulty expressing them in words. In societies where transition into adulthood is gradual and relatively easy, as in some primitive culture, there is little need for youth to be conscious of his participation in developing a new role for himself.
Margaret Mead has described the developmental patterns of the mountain-dwelling Arapesh of New Guinea, among whom transition from childhood to adulthood is easy. Both men and women are affectionate, trusting and unaggressive. They consider bearing children and growing food the principle ends of life. The total community is the group to which all Arapesh feel they belong. Children refer to all adults by the same terms they use in speaking of their fathers and mothers. After an initiation which involves much ceremony but little hardship, boys gradually take over adult economic and social responsibilities.
Changes in Social Behaviour:
The social changes are of varied nature Parents attitude changes and they assign him social responsibilities and relationship with the member of opposite sex. They make friends. The friendship of this period tends to be permanent.
They also develop the social interests which are influenced by the following factors:
(1) Physical development,
(2) Sex difference,
(3) Environment,
(4) Socioeconomic status of family, and
(5) Mental abilities of the social interests of adolescence can be broadly classified into four categories:
(i) Social interests
(ii) Recreational
(iii) Personal and
(iv) Vocational interests
(i) Social Interests:
Adolescents develop interest outside the home and neighbourhood. He reigns in the company of his friends outside the home. He likes to discuss of serious nature. Discussion and conservation are more satisfying because it provides freedom of expression.
(ii) Recreational Interests:
It contributes to mental health of adolescents because it provides freedom for expressing emotional feeling and releases their tensions. It develops creativity of adolescents. They are very constructive. A large number of adolescents do not find such opportunities for the recreation due to several reasons. The poverty is most serious factor in our rural areas where more than 75 per cent population lives.
The following types of recreations are required for adolescents:
(a) All type of games and sports are played by boys and girls but sport requiring physical strength are more popular with boys.
(b) Hobbies—Adolescents in cities are engaged in hobbies like free drawing, gardening, collection of coins, writing and photography climbing and fishing, etc.
(c) Reading interest adolescents like to read books, magazines, comics, stories, novels and newspapers.
(d) Seeing television and listening radio. They like to see telefilms and serials on television. Dance program is most popular these days. Adolescents take more interest in cricket matches live telecast.
(e) Movies and films have greatly influenced the life of adolescent. Movies are the best means of recreation and for relaxation. They identify themselves with character of the movie story. It has both type of affect negative as well as positive. Limitation of dress, new styles of hair and expression love and affection to other.
(iii) Personal Interest:
Adolescents have need of exhibitions. They want to attract the attention of others. The area personal appearance and the body size, hair style, face and nails among girls. Adolescents wear multi-coloured and new style of dress and clothes.
In recent years, we have been observing a strange trend in clothes of boys and girls. Boys try more and more to look like a girl and girls try more to look masculine. One can hardly differentiate between an adolescent boy and girl wearing modern dress. In clothes bright colours are generally liked by adolescents but choice of bright colours decreases with the advancing age of adolescent. New style and ornamentation of dress as flowers, trimming, laces, embroider etc., are used to attract the attention of on-lookers.
Adolescents are also interested and conscious of physical health and its importance in society. They know the value and influence of good health on their general well-being in the society. They become interested to know as how to avoid diseases and how to develop good health.
(iv) Vocational Interest of Adolescents:
The adolescents are much bothered about their future career because they want some significant place in the society and want to live independent.
There are several factors which have the influence on vocational interests:
(a) Sex factor
(b) Rural-urban factor,
(c) Father’s occupation,
(d) Socioeconomic status of the family,
(e) Occupational attractiveness, and
(f) Familiarity with the occupations.
Adolescents have the vocational interest for professional jobs like teaching, medicine, engineering, executive posts, lawyer, etc. Girls vocational interests are modelling, beauty parlour, painting, type, etc.
At the age of 7 or 8 years a girl is betrothed to a boy several years her elder. She there upon goes to live with his family. Some years later she, too, goes through initiation ceremonies, but her life goes on as before. Her future parents-in-law are quite as indulgent as her own parents. During their adolescent years, both she and her betrothed are members of the same family and community groups. Thus, there are no sudden shifts from one group to another, and the transition from childhood to married life is very gradual.
Here is an example of how in some primitive societies a young person’s settles with little fanfare into his appropriate adult role shortly after puberty. In addition to performing adult social and economic duties, he functions sexually as an adult. In societies such as this the passage from childhood to adulthood is so smooth that it goes unrecognized as a special period. Adolescence, as defined in western societies, is not a world-wide phenomenon.
Adolescent, then, in Cultural Invention:
In many primitive societies, where the transition is not so smooth, quite often there is a ceremonial adolescence of relatively short duration. This usually takes the form of puberty rites or initiation ceremonies and is timed to occur near the onset of sexual maturity. Such rites have been observed among various primitive people in many parts of the world.
Apparently, such people recognize the onset of adolescence as the time to initiate boys and girls, often with bizarre and impressive ceremonies. Initiation rites include filling the teeth of adolescents, isolating them for a period of time, or in various ways mutilating their genitals. In males this consists of circumcision or sub circumcision; in females, clitoridectomy or laceration of hymen or vaginal walls. At the conclusion of his puberty rites a young person assumes the role of full adulthood. He enters into all adult activities of the group as a full-fledged member. These activities include marriage, preparation of puberty rites for other youth, and sharing in previously withheld secrets of the tribe.
In that initiation ceremonies dramatize achievement of adult status, primitive groups may handle the problem of adolescence better than do “citilized” societies. Today, in modern civilization some vestiges of primitive initiatory ceremonies remain. Initiations are used to bring boys and girls into formal membership in various political, religious, and social organizations. However, such activities usually are not central to acquire manhood or womanhood.
Some primitive societies stretch adolescence over a considerable period of to time. Upto the time of adolescence, both sexes of Tchambuli youth remain with groups of women and smaller children. Men spend most of their time by themselves planning ceremonials. When boys reach the age of 9 or 10, they are eased out of the warm protective groups of adult women and children. However, they are not yet welcome to join mean’s groups. Men consider them mere boys who are not fit to be trusted with ceremonial property and secrets.
Mental Development in Adolescents:
Mental growth and development are associated with increasing maturity. There is no distinct stage in mental development in the sense, say that a child passes from a clearly demarcated stage of pre-occupation with the remote or the abstract. The mental development starts from concrete thinking. Throughout life a person is quite uneven in the extent to which he show ‘mature’ ways of thinking. He may operate on a very abstract level in his use of words and yet-show little capacity for abstractions in his drawings. He may be capable of sustained logical thinking in one area but not in others and so forth.
Thus, it is difficult to describe mental development in terms of distinct stages, it remains true, of course, that certain features of behaviour and certain developmental trends are more conspicuous at-one mental age level than another.
Language Development in Adolescents:
According to P.E. Vernon v : Ed is the factor which is known as educational abilities. It consists of two factors verbal and numerical abilities. The language development is due to intellectual progress of an individual.
An important feature of language learning and development is the gain in precision is using words, the ability to select terms and phrases to denote different shades of meaning and to recognize the varied denotations and connotations of words. The process of using terms with increased discrimination and of learning the numerous different meanings of various words is never completed. It continues as long as the individual continues to live and learn.
There is no simple way in which the full meaning of terms used in school subjects can be learned once and for all, for it is only through meeting a term in various contexts that a person can learn its various meanings.
The social and emotional adjustments have also the bearing on his language development. The environment has a notable effect upon the individual’s learning of correct pronunciation, good usage and intelligence correct grammar. At the stage of adolescence intellectual horizon widened in a proper social and physical environment.
Nature of Mental Development of Adolescents:
Mental abilities are more related to heredity of an individual and environment helps in developing them, Cattel’s fluid theory considers two types of factors biological and social factors. These factors continue to development at distinct age level. Thus, intellectual horizon saddened into distinct-abilities. Mental development during adolescence accelerates in intellectual abilities.
The following are the characteristics of mental development of adolescents:
1. Development of Memory and Imagination:
The memory in adolescence develops tremendously with the growth in vocabulary. The adolescents can imagine about a situation which is not physically present before them. Their long-term memory increases. They can retain facts for a longer period. They can anticipate future needs and can plan for it. The idea of historical past can be grasped by adolescents. The idea of time concepts becomes clear to them.
2. Development Ability of Problem-Solving:
The ability to solve problems increases in adolescence. The adolescents can solve problems with the help of symbols. He is now able to deal with ideas that do not represent something in which a person’s difficulty involved. The adolescents solve and talk about national and international problems. They are able mentally to deal with events in a world that extends far beyond their own immediate sphere of activity.
3. Widened Ability to Communicate with other Person:
The adolescents on roads, in coffee houses, and tea stalls can be seen arguing for hours on topics of their interest.
4. Identification with Conditions and Characters in the Larger World:
Another important change in intellectual orientation that takes place near the beginning of adolescence appears in the child’s ability to identity with the circumstance and people outside his own immediate, environment.
5. Development of Ability to Make Decisions:
The individual has to make many decisions in his daily life. Decision making ability is necessary for successful adjustment in life. During adolescence we expect the growing child to gain increasing confidence in his own opinion. There is a certain amount of independence in thinking, a certain freedom in exploring and a weighing alternative that is involved in the kind of maturity that enables one to make decisions of his own. The adolescents have the ability to think about their future. They can differentiate between ideals and the actual. They are reasonably objective in taking note of some of their weaknesses.
6. Development of Moral Concepts:
The child, without questioning the validity of moral training, obeys the moral code framed by parents, but as he enters the adolescence he critically examines the moral code and asks a number of questions. The moral concepts become internalized and the adolescent is able to differentiate what is good and what is bad for him.
7. Development of Language:
The language development starts from the stage of infancy but at this stage precision in using words, selecting appropriate phrase to indicate different shades of meaning and recognize denotations and connotations of words. The notable effect upon the adolescent learning of correct pronunciation and good usage and correct grammar.
8. Sidened the Ability to Generalize the Facts:
One noticeable characteristic of mental operations in adolescence is increased ability to generalize the facts. Children usually generalize in relation to concrete objects. The intellectual development in childhood operates on perceptual level but in adolescence the ability to generalize on conceptual level develops. The adolescent can generalize in an abstract way.
9. Widened Ability to Understanding:
There is an increase in the ability to see relationship and to solve problems of increasing complexity and difficulty. His depth of understanding develops. The adolescent can think the solution of more difficult problems.
Increased Ability to Deal with Abstraction:
The adolescents can think not only in general terms but also in abstract terms to a greater degree than children.
They can think in term of symbols rather that concrete things. Ability to carry on abstract thinking is not something that suddenly develops in adolescence. It is relative. This ability to comprehend and to communicate meanings in abstract qualitative concepts is an important aspect of intellectual maturity in adolescents.
10. Development of Cause and Effect:
As children grow adolescents, there is an increase in the number of problems for which they have adequate answers, but answers that are logical and scientifically plausible appear at all age levels in response to problems that lie within the adolescent’s grasp and insight.
11. Capacity for Inductive and Deductive Reasoning:
It has been found that adolescents are able to detect certain logical misconceptions or fallacies and to arrive at a generalization form given particulars to select from a number of alternative solutions the one that is compatible with all the given facts. The inductive and deductive methods of teaching are most popular in school teaching subjects.
12. Ego-Development:
The most important feature of mental development during the period of adolescence is the ego development. It raises the level of aspirations among the adolescents. They have the capacity and courage for the heroic deeds. Their potentialities should be oriented towards the positive direction by their teacher and parents.
In the process of growth and child’s mental world expands in many dimensions. As he moves to the large world his mental horizon widens. With the development of the imaginative abilities and the ability to plan, the dimensions of the child’s mental world are extended into anticipation of the future.
Adolescents are usually conscious about his future career and future life in the society. Adolescent thinking, like thinking of adult, is influenced to varying degrees by his desires, his fears and other emotional tendencies. Teaching cannot make use of their intelligence in meeting the problems of everyday life of adolescents.
Theoretical Basis of Mental Development:
Jean Piaget, has worked for several years on mental development and concepts formations. He developed a new theory of mental development. He proposes that cognitive development proceeds through an orderly sequence of stage. There is almost the fixed progression from one stage to another.
Ausbel commenting upon the development stages of Piaget writes “Piaget’s stages are identifiable, sequential phase in an orderly progression of development that are qualitatively discriminable from adjacent phases and generally characteristics of most members of a broadly defined age range.”
The stages of cognitive development are related in that they represent forms of adoption but these forms are qualitatively different; that is the adaptive functions are transformed as the child moves from one stage to the next. This theory of development is quite different from the theory of associationists which emphasizes the gradual accumulation of responses.
Piaget was interested in the developmental process and the change in behaviour. The concept of scheme applies to the sensorimotor behaviour of the infant. The infant sucks the breast of his mother, he looks at the objects of his environment, listens different voices in the environment and finally he tries to comprehend, conceptualize the articles, animals, space and many other cognitive structures. The process of conceptualization is closely dependent upon the sequences of behaviour employed by the infant to adapt to his environment.
Although a particular scheme derives its name from the behaviour sequence it describes, but it implies some internal organizational deposition that enables the sequence to adopt itself to a variety of conditions. According to Piaget, sensorimotor sequence and the cognitive structures are of the same class because they are continuous processes. As the development proceeds, each scheme enlarges and changes and is coordinated with other schemes to form more complex schemes.
Adolescence Period of Formal Operations:
At this stage the child’s thought process become quite systematic and reasonable well-integrated. These qualities of the child’s thought process are evident when events are present. Reality guides his contemplation of possibility. He starts a form of hypothetical-deductive reasoning. The use of formal operations is what is called the controlling aspects of comprehending.
The child at this stage is his formal thinking can free himself of here and now in a lawful and systematic way. His wisdom lies in the masterful administration of the unforeseen. When an adolescent is faced with a problem he uses formal operations to identify the variables that seem relevant to the solutions and then considers all the possible combinations of these variables.
The formal thought of adolescent is of propositional nature. The adolescent using formal operations views the concrete data as inducing a set of proposition and he then applies operations to these propositions which are themselves primary operations. Formal thinning is thus inter-propositional and inter-operational and entails working out propositions or applying second order operations to primary ones.
The development, of formal operations enables the adolescent to transfer understanding from one situation to another situation.
The adolescent shows a particular orientation to problem solving, he analyses and organizes his approach before he attempts a specific empirical test.
The Hallmark of formal operations period is the development of the ability to think in symbolic terms and comprehend content meaningfully without requiring physical objects or even visual or other imagery based on past experience with such objects. Formal operations are the logical and mathematical concepts which are used in advanced conceptualization and reasoning etc., which is difficult to represent concretely.
Educational Implications of Mental Development:
The characteristics of mental development of adolescents have been described which provides the nature of mental growth but a teacher should understand, how this awareness can be utilized in organizing teaching-learning situations and solving the problems of adolescents.
1. Adolescents are overwhelmed by number of problems, particularly of sex problems. It will be desirable to provide sex education and moral education to adolescents to develop positive and healthy attitude towards the members of opposite sex.
2. Most important function of school is to provide conducive environment within the school for the proper development of their mental abilities. The school should provide good libraries, opportunities for free discussion, community service. The needs of adolescents should be given proper place in the school curriculum.
3. Adolescents should be provided opportunities for the development of their creative abilities through music, dance, and arts and crafts. Divergent thinking should be encouraged. The teacher should present an ideal model through his dealing and teaching in the class. The teacher should help adolescents to develop positive attitude towards life.
4. Identification with conditions and characters in the larger world. Another important change in intellectual orientation that takes place near the beginning of adolescence appears in the child’s ability to identify with the circumstances and people outside his own immediate environment.
5. Sex education for adolescent. It is the hard fact file but do not share his responsibility of providence sex education. The other agency which can be assigned responsibility to teacher, doctor and social worker. The doctor can provide the awareness of physiological aspect of education. The social worker can impart instruction concerning the importance of sex in social life or married life.
The teacher is the only person who can effectively impart sex education with same assistance of doctor and social worker. The teacher who are emotionally stable, balance personality and have real interest in adolescents problems should be assigned the responsibility of sex education. It should be integral part of regular curriculum.