Chapter 5- How do adolescents develop?

Physical Development: Puberty

When the body is changing and students have hard time understanding these changes. Students physical development will be different for each one of them, but a common question asked during this time is: Am I normal/Is this normal? (teeth, boobs, hair, etc) As a librarian we need to remember that they are going thorough many changes and it is not an easy time. There are many books that insure students about these changes.

Intellectual Development: Piaget Theory

Previously the age at when children move from concrete way of viewing things to abstract was at age 10, but it occurs around 14.

Development Stages: Havighurst

Another developmental theorist, which discuss stages children and young adults go through. When we get to the adolescent stage we begin to choose friends based on mutual interest like music, clothes etc. This is also they stage where relationships with opposite sex changes as well and developing moral and values.

Moral Development: Kohlberg  

Three stages to moral development according to Kohlberg include:

·         Pre-Conventional- as children we tend to operate at this level but adults can operate at this level. Punishment and rewards.

·         Conventional- Following of rules.

·         Post conventional- most people do not work at this level of mortality. We tend to think of ourselves before others.

How does this deal with literature: when students read certain books with messages that deal with post conventional morality, we as librarian need to understand that some students will not be able to understand the book.

Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy

This is usually leveled in a pyramid because particular need must be met before the next can happen. Needs that need to be met (in order) include: Psychological, Safety, Love/Belonging, Esteem, and Self-Actualization.

This is very important because you might be the only person that meet these needs for that student. If students are hungry they are not going to be able to learn or even want to learn. Self-Actualization is the need to feel that you can be or do anything you want to do. Books can meet these needs as well.

Reader Development -The Birthday Cake Theory

This includes a series of layers that a reader falls into when they start to read

·         Develop Empathy -feeling what the character feels

·         Unconscious Delight-serial reading with book series, authors, or subject matter

·         Reading Autobiographically-looking through the mirror

·         Reading for Vicarious Experiences-looking in the window

·         Reading for Philosophical Speculation-questioning of what is going on and why – what should I believe, looking at the bigger world

·         Reading for Aesthetic Experiences reading for the beauty, joy, and pleasure of reading certain works

This theory is not a hierarchy these are stages of a lifelong reader and can is happening continuously.

Reflection:

To be able to match books to readers, we need to know readers. It is very important as a librarian to be able to understand students and their development.

Having knowledge of the intellectual development will help me as a librarian because I will need to think about what questions I am asking students. When we are asking more abstract questions, we will probably have to scaffold those questions to help them think more abstractly. This also helps us think about where students are intellectual and which books best fit for these students.

We need to make sure that we provide the steps in the Birthday Cake Theory to our students leads to the enjoyment of reading for the act of reading on its own