Copyright ©2013 by Association for Middle Level Education.

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Printed in the United States of America.

CONTENTS

Foreword by William D. Waidelich

Introduction: What Does It Mean To Be an Adolescent in Poverty?

Chapter 1: Physical Development

Chapter 2: Cognitive-Intellectual Development

Chapter 3: Moral Development

Chapter 4: Psychological Development

Chapter 5: Social-Emotional Development

Chapter 6: What Schools Can Do to Improve the Success and Achievement of Students in Poverty

Conclusion

Bibliography

Foreword

As Executive Director of the Association for Middle Level Education (AMLE), I am proud to join with Ruby Payne in producing a book that gives educators the information they need about how poverty impacts young adolescents’ physical, cognitive, social-emotional, psychological, and moral development, and how they learn. AMLE’s mission is to improve the educational experiences of all students ages 10–15, so combining Ruby’s expertise on educating the under-resourced with our expertise on the development of young adolescents is a natural fit.

You will find that Ruby has based her manuscript on the characteristics identified in AMLE’s This We Believe: Keys to Educating Young Adolescents (NMSA, 2010) to guide educators in developing schools to ensure that every young adolescent becomes a healthy, productive, and ethical adult. She provides a wealth of ideas for making the education of young adolescents (1) developmentally appropriate, (2) challenging, (3) empowering, and (4) equitable. The joint message of Ruby’s company, aha! Process, and AMLE is that to successfully teach under-resourced youths, you have to develop relationships with them, and to develop relationships with them, you have to understand where they come from, what their struggles are outside of school, who they are as individuals, and what their dreams are.

We know that under-resourced students at the middle level are a critical part of all strategies to achieve the national goal of graduating all students from high school prepared for a career, college, and civic life. Robert Balfanz’s decade of research at Johns Hopkins and direct field experience in more than 30 middle schools showed that in high-poverty environments, a student’s middle grades experience strongly impacts the odds of graduating from high school. (Balfanz, 2009). Under-resourced environments for middle grades students can result in the factors of significant, chronic absenteeism, lack of belief in hard work bringing life success, and lack of self-management, self-motivational, and organizational skills—all of which he identified as critical to middle school success.

I hope that this book will arm educators with the tools to support young adolescents in poverty to succeed in school and in life.

William D. Waidelich, EdD, CAE

Executive Director, AMLE

INTRODUCTION:

What Does It Mean To Be an Adolescent in Poverty?

The purpose of this book is to promote the development of assets and resources for students in the middle grades. We will explore what can be done when students come to school with fewer resources than they need and what educators can do to help those students develop as successful, resourced human beings.

Although many significant developments occur during early adolescence (years 10–15), the following tend to be the most important.

1. Physical development: puberty and body image
2. Cognitive/intellectual development: brain changes
3. Moral development: development of a moral compass
4. Psychological development: identity and differentiation from adults
5. Social/emotional development: safety and belonging—“fitting in”

Each of the first five chapters focuses on one of these, listing the characteristics of the type of development, reviewing the research about that stage of development, discussing how under-resourcing impacts that type of development, and finally, suggesting interventions for the under-resourcing. The sixth chapter outlines school interventions that can improve the chances of success for under-resourced students. The Conclusion emphasizes the importance to adolescents and the community of laying a strong foundation at the middle level, as well as the lasting value of excellent teachers and schools.

Throughout the book, I have drawn upon the wealth of research and resources that the Association for Middle Level Education (AMLE) provides for educators to fulfill their mission of improving the education of all students ages 10–15. Long a champion of developmentally appropriate learning, they are the perfect partner for me as I apply my own research, resources, and experience to the problem of helping all middle grades students succeed. And, although I do cite research and spend a fair amount of time giving you background knowledge about adolescent development, my aim is to provide you with real-world interventions for real-world issues.

Connecting the Factors of Environment, Resources, and Relationships

Three interlocking factors impact the cognitive framework of adolescents. First, is the environment, or surroundings. It’s a well-known axiom in biology that a key to survival is for organisms, including people, to adapt to their external environments. The second factor is the availability of resources: The more stable the resources, the more predictable the environment. The more predictable the environment, the more an individual can plan and have a future story. If an individual is in an environment with scarce resources, then every day becomes a win-lose proposition for survival.

In addition to environment and resources, the cognitive framework of adolescents includes relationships (and knowledge derived from those relationships). The following diagram illustrates these three interlocking factors that impact thinking.

In my book A Framework for Understanding Poverty (2013), I state that the fewer resources you have, the more you “live” on the left-hand side of the following chart. If you have more resources, the more you live on the right side of the chart.

Continuum of Resources That Help Build Stability

Source: A Framework for Understanding Poverty by R. K. Payne, 2013.

In this book, we will examine each of the above characteristics, provide a checklist for each in order to understand to what extent a student has resources, analyze the impact of that reality, and provide interventions that assist with the development of resources.

Under-Resourced Environments Can and Do Produce Strengths

You have probably heard the saying “That which doesn’t kill you, only makes you stronger.” Adapting to an under-resourced environment can develop valuable strengths and characteristics in many individuals, such as

• The ability to survive.
• A clear understanding of concrete reality.
• The ability to defend oneself.
• A strong sense of connection with others who also are in survival mode.
• An ability to problem-solve and “make do” with minimal materials.
• A sixth sense about adults who may not be “safe.”
• The capacity for sometimes going all day without food.
• An informal, even casual, approach to living.
• The ability to entertain and be entertained.
• A capacity for enjoying the basics of life in very immediate ways.

Furthermore, just because an environment is under-resourced doesn’t mean it’s permanent. Note that each of us, whether we are adult or adolescent, periodically lack everything we require. Just because we may not have had all the resources that we wished for at a given time in our life doesn’t mean that we were or are a failure; overcoming adversity is a part of life. And just switching external environments requires a different set of resources to survive, which then requires new adaptations and support.

The purpose of this book is simply to acknowledge the realities of under-resourced situations and then identify ways to compensate for the scarcity. Life always has been and always will be about learning and growing.

1

PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT

In the wonderful book titled This We Believe: Keys to Educating Young Adolescents (National Middle School Association, 2010), the following characteristics of physical development of young adolescents are listed. (I have rephrased and simplified the original list. For added detail, see This We Believe.)

• Rapid, irregular physical growth
• Body changes that create awkwardness
• Varying maturity rates
• Restlessness and fatigue due to hormonal changes
• The need for daily physical activity
• The need to release energy
• Preferences for junk food
• Risky dieting practices
• Developing sexual awareness
• Concern with bodily changes
• Increased need for accurate information about sex and health
• Physical vulnerability to drugs
• High-risk sexual behaviors
• Poor habits

What Does the Research Indicate About Physical Development of Adolescents?

The biggest issue for adolescents ages 10–15 is puberty. And the biggest issue about puberty that concerns adolescents is simply: Am I they going through the physical changes at about the same time as my friends? Too early or too late, and they lose status with their peers.

There can be up to three years of variation either way in all the changes adolescents go through during puberty, depending on the genetics and ethnicity of an adolescent. The average girl is two years ahead of the average boy in height changes. A girl’s height spurt generally occurs before menarche—the first menstrual period—but the boy’s height spurt usually takes place after spermarche—his first ejaculation.

A young adolescent, on average, gains from two to four inches in height per year, and in weight, the gain is eight to ten pounds. Over the five year period of young adolescence, this amounts to an average gain of 10 to 20 inches in height and 40 to 50 pounds in weight (Balk, as cited in Strahan, L’Esperance, & Van Hoose, 2009). Because these increases come in irregular spurts and at varying speeds, they would be considered a medical concern in anyone other than a young adolescent. Although they give an overview, these averages do not highlight the wide range of variation in the physical development of young adolescents.

The weight gain can cause students in middle grades concern, even though the weight gain is natural and not an indication of the onset of obesity. Students may worry about the physical changes and believe there is something wrong with them (whether they are taller, shorter, bigger, or smaller) as they continually compare themselves to others. Their ongoing changes impact their self-esteem and thus all of their social relationships which can then impact their body image and eating habits

Research shows the major importance to teens of their peers’ acceptance of the physical changes they are undergoing. It also shows that early onset of puberty is a huge risk factor for them and that later onset of puberty also carries risks. The following chart is a compilation of information (Berger, 2011) about some of the risk factors of early and late maturing of girls and boys.

Risk Factors in Early and Late Maturing of Girls and Boys

Chart compiled from information in The Developing Person Through the Life Span by K. S. Berger, 2011.

Note that if a young adolescent’s parents are under the stress of illness, divorce, addiction, or if they live in a violent environment, that young person is more likely to have earlier onset puberty. Early puberty correlates with earlier sexual activity and with the absence of the biological father. Scientists do not agree on whether stress causes the early puberty or whether it’s caused genetically.

Sleep

Puberty also changes the biorhythm of the body. In adolescents, it changes their day/night pattern. Many adolescents, particularly males, are more alert in the evening than in the morning. Consequently, they are often sleep-deprived because they stay up late and get up early for school; they then feel sleepy during school. Females tend to be on a monthly cycle of hormonal swings, while males tend to operate on a daily cycle of hormonal swings. (In other words, male bodies often react in ways they cannot predict, causing embarrassment, fear, and shame.)

Body image

When adolescents enter puberty with all its physical and hormonal changes, they live the myth of what David Elkind (1967) called the “imaginary audience.” Research indicates that they have exaggerated beliefs about others constantly observing them and negatively assessing the imperfections of their bodies. They tend also to believe that they are unique in their uneven, sometimes troubling physical changes and that they are alone and misunderstood in a world that is now unreliable. Comparison to media body types and peer body types is frequently the topic of conversation, even preoccupation.

Nutrition

Nutrients are needed for the growth of adolescents’ body organs, including the stomach, and they often crave food. Gorging themselves in response, many choose fried foods, carbonated beverages, and candy, and many have diets lacking fruits and vegetables. So, although many adolescents have enough calories, they do not have the level of vitamins and nutrients that their bodies need. Iron is particularly important for females because of the loss of iron through menstruation; for males iron is essential due to the development of muscles. While the recommended daily intake of iron is 15 milligrams, only about half of U.S. adolescents get that much iron. In addition, 85% of adolescent females do not consume enough calcium.

If students seem unresponsive in the morning, they may have skipped breakfast—which will impact their academic performance and certainly their attention span. If they return from lunch with heightened alertness due to sugar, they may get sleepy before the school day is over. Students who have nutritious breakfasts and lunches will usually maintain concentration and be interactive as the lesson requires. Increasingly, schools are providing free- or reduced-cost breakfasts and lunches to help with this problem.