Professional Documents
Culture Documents
One of the most important impacts on adolescent educational environment, next to the
family home and contacts with the peers, is a school. In the period of adolescence (13 – 16
years old) teenagers attend the lower secondary school. It is a place where emotional and
social needs, that are very important for teenagers can be fulfilled. More importantly, school
creates the possibility to engage in pro-social activities or clarify the rules which are obeyed
in adult life.
In relationship with teachers, essential for the proper psychical development are
positive bounds, care, support from the teachers side, understanding and co-operation (Iłendo
– Milewska 2009: 47 ).
Proper adaptation to the school environment is one of the most important social factors
of adolescence. It allows students to exist in a condition which is in favour of versatile
development, creativity and self-awareness. The climate of the school creates a favourable
condition to develop interactions with peers, co-operation in accomplishing aims. Through
social interaction teenagers develop their system of values or compare attitudes towards the
problems. Only in the atmosphere of mutual sincerity and feeling of safety the full contact
between a student and a teacher is possible and the positive, developmental changes is
behavioural, emotional and intellectual physical sphere are possible.(Iłendo – Milewska 2009:
48 )
Adolescence is a period of intense psychical growing up (Bogaj 2006: 35 ). In this
period the necessity of emotional contact is restricted to social contacts. Relations with peers
are not the main aim for teenagers, nevertheless they create proper conditions to developing
adolescence in all spheres (emotional, behavioural, social or spiritual). Contact with another
adolescent can be fundamental in the development of personality in one or a few of these
spheres. Additionally, these contacts give teenagers the possibility to acquire and shape
efficiently in social relations, self-confidence among other people, the sense of being accepted
by them, independency and social tolerance (Iłendo – Milewska 2009: 62).
In a school environment relationships and interactions inside the group play a very
important role. They help with the necessity of expanding students, since inside it, teenagers
can measure themselves against each other and according to that they can prove their values
on the surface of equality and mutuality. The acceptation of the group of peers is very often
much more important than the acceptation from the teacher or family side.
Lower secondary school becomes a place where pathologies can be found most
frequently. Bogaj mentions, that lower secondary school students are ahead of other students
in numbers of school rule violations; truancy, vandalism of school property, disruptive
behaviour during the lesson, verbal violence towards both teachers and students, drinking
alcohol and smoking. (Bogaj 2006: 45).
This is a period, when teenagers search for their individual identity. For this reason
they challenge themselves many times on the verge of behaviours that are considered by
adults as unaccepted. Among classmates and friends a young teenager must forge his or her
own identity and the approval is considerably more important for teenager than the attention
of the teacher (Harmer 2001: 39 ). Not only this reason causes the students to be disruptive
during lessons. Apart from the need for self-esteem and approval they can be just bored. It is
important to remember that adolescents are characterized as bursting with energy. Their well
used impetuousness combined with suitable motivating factors can arouse an enormous
potential to learning inside them, which when used appropriately brings satisfactory effects
both for students themselves and teachers. Accordingly it is very significant for the process of
learning to proceed in conditions which cause that young people to sense that learning is
inevitable and extremely important factor of their own personal development. The appropriate
techniques of presenting material and motivating techniques help to take the right attitude
towards their process of learning.