The Importance of Peer Groups

One of the discussion questions this week asked us to think about what teachers and parents need to understand about adolescent peer groups. I think that this is an issue that teachers need to consider very carefully. At some point in many children’s lives their peer groups will become extremely important to them. Reflecting on my own childhood, my peer group became very important to me. They became a huge influence in my life. I don’t think there is a specific age that this transition occurs and from my observations it is different for every child. I think that this will greatly affect me as a teacher. I’ll have to learn how to deal with the importance of peer groups in my class room. As we discussed in class, impressing ones peer group can become more important than listening to the teacher.

            One strategy I think I could use as a teacher would be to use the importance of these peer groups as an asset. Implementing group work could be a way to do this. Some of the statistics that I found online indicated that some studies have shown that students that work in small groups tend to learn more of what is being taught and are more satisfied with the class. When I was working in a grade two classroom in my first year, I noticed that the teacher I was working with arranged the kid’s desks in groups of about four to six. She would also change the desks around every week and mix up the kids. This strategy seemed to get the kids working together and working with everyone in the classroom, not just their peer group.

http://chasewilsoneducation.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/peer-pressure.jpg (link for a picture)

 This leads me to consider one of the possible challenges that peer groups bring about, exclusion. I chose the photograph above because I thought that it demonstrated exclusion. Wanting to be part of a peer group can become as important as the influences of a peer group. When I was working in the grade two classroom I noticed this. Exclusion can become a distraction and consume the child’s attention. To me, this furthers the idea that peer groups are extremely important to children, even at very young ages. I think that my mentor teacher’s strategy of switching the desks around was a really good idea. It seemed to get all of the children working together and working with everyone.

            Overall, I believe that teachers and parents need to understand just how important students peer groups are, and learn different strategies to deal with them. As a teacher this is one of the challenges that I will have to learn to understand and work with in my classroom.

http://teaching.berkeley.edu/bgd/collaborative.html (I got some information from this website)