| Subject: Chapter 2 My Students and Behavioral Theories |
Author:
Carolyn Brown
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Date Posted: 10:22:16 01/20/08 Sun
One concern I noted when I began teaching middle school students last fall was the number of thumb suckers in my eighth grade classes. At first I thought the habit was just a quirk, but after several weeks, I realized that the behavior was a daily activity for some students, male and female. Now considering the Freudian psychosexual stages in Chapter Two, I think the overall behavioral challenges and anxieties those particular students face are eased by the stress reducing thumb sucking behavior. The students generally respond as normal 14 year olds and talk about music, sex, and relationships. But when agitated or dealing with conflicts with class mates, the thumb suckers put in one or two fingers or a thumb in their mouths during class, in the cafeteria, or in the hallways, often oblivious to the reactions of others. I began thinking about what I have learned from those students about their lives and their expressed feelings, and I believe confusion about identity, family issues, and peer interaction account for most of the anxiety.
On the other hand, students who face similar anxieties have another coping mechanism, aggression. Both males and females in this aggressive group reveal, when given the opportunity, a highly charged family environment. Facial bruises and obvious physical injuries inflicted by family members or as a result of family conflicts are often noted in this group of students. After-school neighborhood conflicts spill over into the school experience. In school, the aggressive response learned at home and in the neighborhood is expressed in verbal and physical challenges with teachers and classmates. This group of students tends to have medical concerns or social services involvement in their lives. Where siblings are also students at the school, often a familial pattern of aggression is noted. During some parent conferences, I get another view of the source of the aggression. I see the social cognitive theory and the ecological contextual theory as theories to account for aggressive student behavior.
But by the time I finished Chapter 2’s discussion of theories, I realized I didn’t have all the answers and genuine research would probably give more accurate explanations than my thoughtful but limited observations about my students.
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