TCH 130: Blog Twelve: YA in Images

Partner for this assignment was : Joey Fatigante

Joey and I chose to arrange our collage into a rainbow to represent the different colors we will see in our classroom. Every student is different, and we can see a wide variety of emotions, personas, and characters. However, like the pride symbol of the rainbow, we are ready to accept any and every student. We want our future students to know that they are safe in our classrooms.

Physical

We chose to add a picture of the YA with the sweaty armpit because this is a time where body odor and body hair start to become real for these growing individuals. Deodorant will be their new best friend. The cartoon of the child with long arms depicts the disproportionate growth of the YA body. The bones are growing more rapidly than the muscles, causing them to have an “awkward” appearance of long limbs. Finally, the bedroom represents the importance of sleep. Sleep helps secrete the proper hormones needed for YA to develop.

Social

We chose to add the blue pegs with one orange peg to show the YA’s desire to be an individual but also be a part of the “in” crowd. The orange peg is still a peg like the blue ones, but is different by being orange. The green heart represents the start of romantic and sexual feelings YA start to feel towards others. We also added the social media icons because this is when YA become more engrossed in social media. This can be positive as it is a way for YA to connect with their friends, but it can also be negative as some are not being safe online.

Emotional

During YA middle years their friend groups become more important than their parents which can lead to positive and negative peer pressure, we chose the image of the eyes behind the girl to represent this because it can show that she constantly is feeling watched or pressured to do something. Bullying can have a huge impact on YA development and can cause emotional issues later in life such as anxiety and depressions so we used the first image on the bully wearing red to represent this. Media can have a huge emotional effect on YA students as they become interested in popular cultural trends. We represented this by showing the girl looking at her phone which is where most YA follow their favorite celebrity to see how to dress and act.

Cognitive

YA brains are still going through significant changes so we used the image of the man working on the purple brain to represent that the brain in still being developed. During this time YA students are starting to be able to think about goals and the future so we chose the person running on the arrow towards the bullies (or goal) to represent them working to achieve their goals. Risk taking also becomes more common at this age so we used the “idea loading” image to show how a student may form the idea to do something they normally would not do.