Young Adolescent Development

 

 What does it mean to meet the needs of a full range of learners at the middle level?

“Supporting young people during this crucial time in their lives, requires acknowledging the shared perspective of young adolescents while recognizing that individuals experience early adolescence differently.” (Neal, 2022)

              The above quote from the AMLE article “Developmental Characteristics of Young Adolescents”, really hit home from me. It’s a call for educators to understand that the population of young adolescents at large are going through similar milestones but acknowledging that the journey is an individual one. This is not dissimilar to approaches when thinking about how a student identifies culturally, racially, or economically. There may be common threads to these shared identities amongst peers but the lived experience is solely that of the student.

That makes it critical that we, as middle school educators, understand the developmental milestones that students will experience physically, emotionally, and mentally. I found the Ted Talk by Sarah-Jayne Blakemore so enlightening that I sent it to my husband to watch so he could understand what is developmentally happening with our son. As Sarah-Jayne referenced in her video, young adolescents’ brains are undergoing drastic changes. The limbic system has a heightened sense of reward after taking a risk while the prefrontal cortex is still developing to understand and control impulse decisions. (Blakemore, 2012) If we as adults don’t understand this development, we are more likely to blame the student and misplace their actions for bad character or values. Sarah-Jayne goes on to say that because these students’ brains are so malleable, it is the perfect environment for teachers to help shape their brains and help set them on a path of strong decision-making skills. (Blakemore, 2012) We therefore need to create schools and classrooms with safe environments for risk taking and mistake making that help students learn from this process and help them feel supported through this developmental milestone.

I also found the AMLE article mentioned above to be extremely helpful in breaking down the changes and the impacts of those changes on our young adolescent population at school or among peers. Below I chose to highlight one quotation that I found meaningful from each category.

Physical Changes:  “Teachers can also disrupt deficit talk and disparaging comparisons about body size or body image (Bishop & Harrison, 2021) to promote young adolescents’ well-being.” (Neal, 2022) What I find alarming, is that in the relationships I have with young adolescence currently, teachers either aren’t aware that this type of dialogue is happening or they aren’t doing enough to stop it. Students feel helpless against these types of damaging comments and either choose to just take it or end up reciprocating the bullying themselves in attempt to get them to stop. I would like to focus my YAAP project on these types of tools and interventions we can equip students with and continue to focus on fostering positive interactions between students during PD opportunities in my teaching career.

Cognitive Development:  “To address this diversity, teachers need to provide an assortment of educational approaches and materials that are appropriate for their students’ wide-ranging cognitive abilities.” (Neal, 2022). This seems like it’s an obvious part of the job description of an educator in general, but the needs of young adolescents make this all that more important in a middle school classroom.

Social Emotional Development:  “Curriculum needs to also create space for young adolescents, particularly those with marginalized identities, to claim and tell their own stories to develop their voice and counter stereotypes (Gibbs Grey, 2019).” (Neal, 2022) I have so many new ideas for this type of student engagement after taking Dr. McDaniel’s Equity and Multicultural Education course.

Psychological Development:  “Schools are ideal settings for engaging young adolescents in formal and informal learning experiences—opportunities for exploration and experimentation. To maximize these opportunities, schools can provide both curricular (e.g., core subjects, exploratory courses) and extracurricular options (e.g., clubs, afterschool programs) that build on young adolescents’ strengths.” (Neal, 2022)

To support both disparity in cognitive abilities as well as support for social-emotional development, I love the idea of offering choice whenever possible. In addition to supporting cultural responsible teaching practices, it also helps provide differentiation as well as autonomy for the student.

              Each of these categories are import areas to support student’s growth and development in the middle childhood years and school is an integral part of that process!

References

AMLE. (2013, November 6). Unique Needs of Young Adolescent. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoSXSyTfUKA

Neal, D. (2022, November 15). Developmental characteristics of young adolescents: Research summary. AMLE. https://www.amle.org/developmental-characteristics-of-young-adolescents/

Tedtalks: Sarah-Jayne Blakemore--the mysterious workings of the adolescent brain. (2012). Ted.com. Retrieved June 19, 2025.

What Can Kids Do. (2012, December 12). This is my place: middle schoolers on social and emotional learning. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wqj3_8raIHw