MUSE353: Adolescence Paper

Jennifer Rodriguez
4/25/16
While enrolled in MUSE353, Secondary General Music Education, a great focus was placed

on the development of adolescence and how this development relates to the teaching and learning
environment created within the classroom. The following paper addresses the effects of
egocentricity in the stages of adolescent development and how this aspect of growth can be
understood and addressed.
To best understand the egocentric qualities that take place in adolescent development, one
must look at the developing brain and general past experience of adolescence. During the
transitioning ages of adolescence, there are processes of both exploring new cognitive developments,
as well as reverting back to old ways. This cycle of progress and regression is due to the fact that new
developments are taking place in the brain, allowing for new growths and experiences to be felt and
explored for the first time. In an article specifically pertaining to the Ego of adolescents, the
authors state that the following adjustments tend to take place while adolescents are exploring new
aspects and perspectives of their personality: These adaptations are often observed as impatience,
demandingness, chronic hunger and insatiability, dissatisfaction, and irritability. Heightened
narcissism in adolescence is evident in increased self- consciousness, bodily concerns, "dreams of
glory," excessive pride, and poignant sensitivity (Sklansky, 272). Clearly, many emotional and selffocused perspectives are triggered during this point in an adolescents life, due to these new
opportunities to both grow and learn about who they are as an individual.
Further, the amount of peer interaction plays a great deal into the drastic personality traits that
occur within adolescent development. The following quote discussing the impulsiveness and selfconscious state of development in adolescence, addresses the drastic influence peer interaction has on
egocentricity and self-image when transitioning to middle school: the amount of unsupervised
time spent with peers increases dramatically, and there is a corresponding decrease in the time spent
with parents or other adults [Brown 1990; Larson and Richards 1991]. This closer level of social

MUSE353: Adolescence Paper

Jennifer Rodriguez
4/25/16
engagement with peers seems to lead to higher levels of self-consciousness, particularly among girls

[Rankin et al. 2000] (Pechmann, 209). Due to the increase in social interactions, students are not
only experimenting and learning from personal experiences, as addressed in the previous paragraph,
but they are also very focused on the actions of their peers. Depending on what peer group a student
is in, their opinions will be influenced by what their friends like and dislike, whether it is or isnt
actually what they may be feeling. This social development therefore greatly impacts the actions of
each student, again creating situations where students may act in a variety of ways that a teacher
should be ready to understand and work with.
When considering how to approach these developmental qualities of adolescents, one should
first remember the life-impacting and educationally stimulating environment in which middle school
is meant to provide. In Richard and Ida Simpsons article, The School, The Peer Group, and
Adolescent Development, the two authors discuss how schooling acts as an environment that should
help mold the rights and wrongs of adolescent development, guiding students as they mature
through educational and social settings. Simpson states, Schoolwork requires concentrated effort
and abstention from other activities until the assignments are completed, and it represents striving for
a distant goal. Where the academic program falls short is in its inability to harness the adolescent's
desire for achievement and recognition among his peers (Simpson, 40). Though this article
addresses that academic programs have a hard time grasping adolescent attention and desire,
MUSE353 Secondary General Music has guided undergraduate Music Education Majors to
specifically put the focus on student centered learning, working to directly address desire and peer
cooperation within education.
In order to best engage adolescents, educators must ultimately think outside of their personal
perspectives and draw from each class on an individual basis. In a way, it seems teaching is very
similar to improvisation in this light, for the fact that each set of students and each day will bring new

MUSE353: Adolescence Paper

Jennifer Rodriguez
4/25/16
interests in challenges that will need to be addressed on the spot. Therefore, when considering

treating general music education as an improvisational ability, the teacher must know how their
audience will think and respond. Roxana Matter states in her article on adolescent egocentricity
that, Adolescent actions, in varying degrees, result from and reflect the stage of mental maturity to
which a young person has progressed. Adults may fail to understand what it is that motivates the
adolescent to behave in a given way simply because the adults' cognitive frame of reference is not the
same as the adolescent's (162). In order to shrink this gap, teachers must draw from experiences that
socially and currently affect the lives of their students. This approach can be directly linked to
student based learning discussed in MUSE353, in which we address the musical approach to
connecting, responding, performing, and creating with students. By first connecting to the personal
needs of the students, there will be a better chance of engaging them in new content, making
responding, performing and creating an more adjustable process for the adolescents. J.P. Comer
states, the content that fosters growth along the developmental path ways is intentionally selected
and embedded in the academic content and activities. Students and staff members reflect on various
social, emotional, and ethical issues and behaviors as they are expressed in the academic content
(761). Just as previously stated, it is pertinent to connect the content to something the students can
relate to in order to create an inclusive and personal environment for each student.
When personally teaching out in the field, I experienced situations in which I could visibly
experience working with student egocentrism and self-development occurring within adolescence
in a General Music classroom. For example, one student in particular that I worked with was very
interested in the fact that I knew about video games that he liked. He would talk to me about these
games or random things he was interested before class would start, but once the lesson would begin
he would disconnect and become uninterested. I found it intriguing that even though he connected
with my personal interests, he made it very apparent that he did not want to participate in class

MUSE353: Adolescence Paper

Jennifer Rodriguez
4/25/16
activities because they did not personally interest him. Similar to this, many students were

comfortable clapping and listening as I spoke to each of them, but when my group used a song from
the movie Frozen during our teaching experience, many students rejected to participate because
they personally did not like the song. How these students were conveying their emotions was exactly
what should be expected during this point in their adolescent development; their attention was based
on their personal desires as well as the opinions of their friends, seeing as they are developing their
individuality and are being exposed to a greater social experience than in past years.
When personally confronted with situations such as these in my teaching, I tried to make an
effort to put the students actions into the perspective of those around them, as well as used different
teaching tactics to try to keep students comfortably engaged in each lesson. In an article on
adolescent development, author J.P. Comer addresses a similar approach that I tried to utilize within
the classroom: when problem behaviors flare up, teachers can ask students to reflect on the
developmental path ways and come up with more appropriate and effective ways that they might
manage a situation. Reflection promotes better thinking, better management of feelings, and more
desirable social behavior (Comer, 761). Through my personal experience, I felt as though this
approach worked very well with getting students engaged again. Specifically if students were
rejecting to participate I would put situations into perspective and ask questions such as, If a friend
was doing these things to you, how would it make you feel? By putting situations into social
perspectives in this way, the students became more aware of their actions. However, these comments
and questions did not completely fix the troublesome situations. With this, my prior point of using
different teaching tactics for individual students helped to further alleviate troublesome situations. As
an example, in my teaching one student frequently complained about participating but finished his
work very early and accurately. To create a more positive atmosphere for this student, I asked him to

MUSE353: Adolescence Paper

Jennifer Rodriguez
4/25/16
walk around the room with me and help other classmates with their work, which peaked his interest

and caused him to focus on the lesson from a different perspective.

It is apparent that I have gained a greater knowledge of how to interact and respond to
adolescence through my studies and observations in MUSE353. Throughout my overall analysis of
egocentricity in the stages of adolescence, along with my actual witnessing of these qualities in
adolescence through observation, I have learned to better approach certain actions and personality
traits of adolescence who may convey egocentrism. There is no specific way of knowing who, when,
or what day a student may feel particularly self-conscious or outspoken about their emotions, so it is
important as an educator to know how to address these situations and understand that this is a
common point of development within all adolescents life. To best address these situations, educators
must make a constant effort to create inviting and relatable environments for their students, as well as
create a place in which students can strengthen their desires to strive for new goals through education
and social interactions. As well, educators must make great efforts to design their lessons and

curriculum to suite the student based needs of adolescents.

MUSE353: Adolescence Paper

Jennifer Rodriguez
4/25/16

Sources:
-EComer, J. P. "Child and Adolescent Development: The Critical Missing Focus in School Reform." Phi
Delta Kappan 86.10 (2005): 757-63. Web.

-Impulsive and Self-Conscious: Adolescents' Vulnerability to Advertising and Promotion Author(s): Cornelia
Pechmann, Linda Levine, Sandra Loughlin and Frances Leslie Source: Journal of Public Policy &
Marketing, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Fall, 2005), pp. 202-221

-Matter, Roxana Marie. "Adolescent Egocentrism: A Key to Some Troubling Behaviors in Young
Adolescents." The High School Journal 66.3 (1983): 162-65.JStore. Web.

-Sklansky, M. A., and Solomon O. Lichter. "Some Observations on the Character of the Adolescent
Ego." Social Service Review 31.3 (1957): 271-76. Web.

-Simpson, Richard L., and Ida H. Simpson. "The School, The Peer Group, and Adolescent
Development." The Journal of Educational Sociology 32.1 (1958): 37-41. Web.