Adolescents Understanding Puberty and Adolescence

Adolescents

Understanding puberty and adolescence in the classroom setting

Teaching about puberty, colloquially known as 'sex education,' requires a teacher to deal with the emotional, psychological, and social challenges of early adolescence. The content of a course that deals with the subject of puberty must be appropriate for a classroom setting of preteens, but not cause the children to feel embarrassed about the natural bodily changes they are going through. Having a session on the first day where the teacher can make a list of words dealing with puberty and allow the children to laugh about these 'bad words,' can illustrate that there is no shame in using the correct terms for the correct body parts, and permits the teacher to teach the subject in a more mature manner in the long run.

The teacher must also be sensitive to the fact that the class may encompass students in very different stages of development, and although all of the students may be 'normal' for their age group few students will feel normal, especially students on the more extreme ends of the developmental spectrum. Addressing the biological changes of adolescence, like menstruation or male voices 'breaking' is important, but so is allowing students to talk about their emotional concerns regarding their physical changes. As well as providing opportunities for class discussions, requiring students to keep a directed journal where they record their physical growth changes over the year, as well as their feelings about specific puberty-related subjects can give them a needed 'private space' to discuss important issues.

To specifically teach the biology of puberty, students can fill in diagrams of the body and brain, identifying the areas associated with the hormones the human body releases in during puberty and the areas of the body affected most by these hormones (Puberty, 2007, Discovery.com). Understanding the physical reasons for hair growth and the male change of vocal tone can make these changes seem less frightening when students experience them personally.