Field Observation #2
I observed a small group of three young males who had just completed the fifth and sixth grades. They were attending a Vacation Bible School. One of them was a fifth grader, while the other two were sixth graders. I sat with the boys during the opening worship rally and observed them while the director lead them in singing and learning the hand/dance motions that went along with the songs. One boy participated fully in the songs and hand motions. He didn't seem to care what anyone thought about him. The second boy was hesistant to join in, but decided to half-heartedly participate. The third boy, on the other hand, would not join in at all. I suspect he had come to the conclusion that he was too old for that sort of thing, and that it wasn't cool. The fact that the other two boys were involved in the music obviously didn't have an affect on him. There was no influence of peer pressure at all going on. This class was the oldest class among all the groups of children at the church that night. I feel like the non-participating child was being a bit of a nonconformist. He knew that he was expected to sing and wave his hands in the air like everyone else, but decided against participating. He probably wasn't being disrespectful, but just didn't feel comfortable in the situation. The first child who sang and danced his heart out was a bit amusing. He was having fun, no matter what anyone else thought about him. Perhaps he was still at the stage of development where he was happy to go wherever his parents sent him. If his mom and dad felt like it was acceptable to be at VBS, then that was fine with him. What was really interesting to me was the second child. He seemed to really struggle with the decision to participate, or not to participate. I found out later that the first and second boys were cousins. The second child had grown up around the first one, I assume. In fact, I'm sure they did because of the way they laughed and joked around with each other. Maybe the second boy was at the stage where he wanted to seek out acquaintances from new people, those outside of his close circle of family and friends. I'm making a lot of conjectures in my observation, but my guesses seem to fit the readings from Chapter 2 of Brighton's book. Even though Boy #1 and Boy #2 were very close in age, they seemed to be at slightly different levels in their social development. Boy #3 might have passed them both quite some time earlier.
Moving on towards the classroom, the boys laughed and talked all the way down the hall. Once inside the classroom, the boys quietened down and found seats around the table. They might have seemed a little shy at first because when the teacher asked them questions, they nodded their heads, instead of verbally communicating. Maybe they were on their "p's" and "q's" because they knew to behave differently around the one who was in authority over them, at the time. This behavior is referred to as differential self. The boys acted one way around each other, and a different way around their VBS teacher.
One other observation I made about their concentration level proves true to what I'm learning about adolescents. Lessons/lectures should be presented in about 15 minute increments, and no longer. Students tend to be unable to focus for longer periods of time than that. Here is what I saw: (which is in no way a judgement on the teacher. She did an excellent job and was very knowledgeable of the subject material)
The beginning of the lesson was very engaging. The boys were asked to read story facts printed out onto little strips of paper. The instructions said to YELL the facts out loud. The boys enjoyed raising their voices and laughed about the assignment. One boy smiled, in satisfaction, when the teacher praised him for reading two hard words correctly. The boys wanted to shout their answers to the second activity also, but that was not part of the directions. The teacher began reading the story from a book and they were responding to the pictures she was showing them. They had just a few questions, but they were respectfully silent as she continued on with the lesson. After 10 minutes, they seemed to be losing concentration. They began darting their eyes over at each other, as if to say, "How much longer?" One boy began stretching his arms out and touching the wall behind him. One began pulling on his knuckles and making them pop. The other one sat quietly with his head facing down toward the table. The teacher realized what time it was and brought her lesson to a close. Shouts and hurray's came when they were told it was time to rotate to their recreation class!
I had not communicated with them at all during the lesson, but stopped them from bounding out the door long enough to get a quick picture of the interesting adolescent trio.
From what I observed, I would do well to keep in mind that little attention spans only last for so long. The subject matter was interesting. The teacher read from the book with a voice and tone that showed a range of emotion. She asked questions during the reading, but overall, the boys just started fading out at the end of the lesson. Also, being able to watch the three different ways each boy reacted to the song service made me realize that, although I may be teaching ONE grade of students, they are not all at ONE developmental level. Some will react to peer pressure, while others won't be overly concerned about what others think. There'll be a few who still want to display their individuality and not attempt to conform, just yet.
I've observed an all-girl group the first time, and now an all-boy group. Let's see if I can get a good mix on this next observation. See you next time.
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