Abstract
We spend most of our youth and adolescence in our families and schools. As we grow up and become more mature, our personalities and behaviors will be built through that process too. But have you ever thought about how we become the people we like now? Why do our personalities and behaviors change over time? And why do we act significantly differently today than when we were young? This article is going to focus on the classroom environment you were exposed to when you were young and find out why it had a magnificent influence on your growth and development.
Introduction
According to Snodgrass, J. (2020), the classroom environment is more than just the way the desks are arranged and includes the conditions and circumstances that we bring, both as students and as educators. The effective classroom environment is a safe space that welcomes discussion, curiosity, dialogue, and discovery. The effective classroom is also not the setting for a power struggle between instructor and students, as learning is shared in the positive classroom space. Several key elements help to create this safe environment, including respect and rapport, discussion and effective questioning, effective and meaningful collaboration, and appropriate technology. When these approaches collaborate well with each other, and when they don’t, our personality shapes and behaviors will change into different patterns.
Factors
Humanistic perspective
Self-actualization: Our goal while at school is to study hard, find our interest in a particular field, and finally pursue it. That’s called self-actualization when it’s applied at school. Adopting differentiated teaching and learning strategies has proven effective in addressing students’ diverse capabilities and potentials as well as developing their skills. Differentiated instruction provided students with an environment suitable to make them feel self-confident, establish positive relations with their classmates, and positively interact and cooperate with them. Aljaser, A.M. (2019). The more compliments and practical suggestions the child gains, the easier it will be for him or her to find a favorable attitude and interests toward his or her life and finally visualize self-actualization.
Self-esteem: self esteem is built to accept yourself as a whole, whether you have advantages or disadvantages. For the direct reciprocal relations,self-esteem and academic achievement transactionally facilitate each other (Wang, Y., Huebner, E.S., & Tian, L. (2021)). If children have high self-esteem, they will respect themselves as they are and be responsible for their actions, so they have higher possibilities to become better people as well as act more sensible, make more effective decisions, and handle some chaotic situations more easily.
The aim of humanism is to find a way to better ourselves. As the foundation, we should maintain our self esteem and keep chasing our goals in order to approximate self- actualization. During this process, the school environment is quite essential for completing these requests. Different classroom environments can lead to different feelings, like teachers praises can let us become more confident yet help enhance our self-esteem,and vice versa. In short, the better students feel about themselves, the more they get involved in class activities, and the more timely compliments they get, the higher the possibilities for them to become better.
Behavioral perspective
Operational learning: this was proved through an experiment called Bobo Doll (Albert Bandura), suggested that most children will learn to imitate actions made by others. That would have a huge influence once applied to the classroom environment -- bullying. Bullying affects the health and development of children and adolescents (da Silva, J.L., de Oliveira, W.A., Komatsu, A.V., Zequinão, M.A., Pereira, B.O., Caravita, S.C., Skrzypiec, G., & Silva, M.A. (2020)). It’s not that difficult to understand. If a child perceives a violent circumstance after seeing his classmate bully someone, he will likely learn and imitate this behavior too, which is harmful to his growth. As the victim’s perspective, that will be worse. Students who have been bullied would feel under pressure and fear being bullied again. On the other hand, they will become insecure. Victims of bullying, but not bullies, were found to be most likely to report feeling unhappy and lonely at school and to report having fewer good friends (Boulton, M., & Underwood, K., 1992).
Punishment: Punishment results in decreasing the likelihood of one’s behavior appearing through some actions. Punishment’s application in the classroom environment is mainly focused on both teachers and students’ behavior. Let’s give an example: while having math class, you’re striving to find the answer to an arduous question, and at the same time, your teacher walks straight to you and checks your answer. Instead of some practical cues, he said your work is totally messy and nonsense. After saying that, all of your classmates look at you and some of them are laughing. Just imagine -- what will you feel? Sad, of course, and maybe shamed that may stop you from thinking and trying. If that situation happens over and over again? Will you ever believe in yourself? I guess no. That’s the influence of punishment, it’s slow, but harmful that handicap us from believing ourselves, then finally influence our behavior and attitude.
Learned helplessness: that’s one consequence of punishment: when students gain stimulus for a particular ratio, the incidence of their behavior will descend to a minimum at which they will ultimately learn not to try again. That’s called learned helplessness. As children who obtain learned helplessness, they will probably have a higher incidence of disbelief, which may influence their personalities and behaviors. Sometimes it may increase the likelihood of failure because children who acquire learned helplessness may actually underestimate their abilities.
Developmental psychology
Attachment: Adolescents’ depressive social withdrawal is a relevant concern for mental health professionals, and it is widespread among community teenagers in form of subclinical symptoms.(Muzi, S., Rogier, G., & Pace, C.S. (2022)). Children under growth gain attachment not only from parents but also from friends. Children with sufficient attachment usually show a higher sense of responsibility and capability when they grow up. If children at school fail to receive enough attachment, they may feel lonely and insecure. If they continue to be ignored or gripped, they may refuse to communicate and even become aloof to everyone which will impair their mental health not only in the present but in the future.
Industry vs. Inferiority confusion: children at school are facing a challenge in their lives that is called industry vs. Inferiority confusion. In this phase, children are going to school to learn new skills and communicate with others. During that period, if one handles subjects well, gets appreciation from teachers, and has friendly relationships with other children, he or she will reach the industry phase of believing in his or her abilities while at the same time remaining confident. Contrary to that, children who failed to complete tasks and were disregarded by teachers or classmates might have entered the inferiority phase, which contradicts the industry phase, may have immersed themselves in a sense of disbelief and self-contempt. In this session, the relationship between teachers and classmates will determine the children’s behavior and emotions, which may have further influence on their growth.
Social motivation
Extrinsic and intrinsic motivation: extrinsic motivation means your action is driven by something that gives you rewards. For example, you study hard to get applause. That’s what extrinsic motivation means. On the other hand, intrinsic motivation means that your action is motivated by something that will really delight you. There’s another example, athletes keep practising because doing a certain sport can give them satisfaction from the heart. Then how are they going to influence our behavior and emotions in classroom environment? Let’s make an example: If one is awarded and praised by his teacher, there’s a great likelihood that he will continue to explore his interest and potential in this particular subject. Under that circumstance, his action is first driven by extrinsic motivation (the teacher’s praises) that may then develop intrinsic motivation (his interest in this subject). through these motivations, one will obtain a higher achievement motivation that helps him carry on longer than others while facing some behavioral problems. On emotional perspective, one will then become more rigid and deliberate, which will have a prominent impact on his future growth.
Conclusion
Through different perspectives, the classroom environment was proven to have a prominent impact on the behavior and emotional shaping of children and even keep influencing them throughout their growth. Since then, what should and what can we do? As a student, being friendly and polite is the first and for all when communicating with teachers and classmates, so it’s important to attend different activities and clubs to find both interests and goals while at the same time building relationships with other students. By the way, having an explicit comprehension of yourself is also crucial, because when something is not going on well or somebody hurts your self-esteem, your own belief in yourself will help you go through it instead of being harmed. From the teachers’ perspective, some timely compliments will be the best, and some practical suggestions will be necessary too.
References
Snodgrass, J. (2020). The Classroom Environment. Teaching Music Theory.
Aljaser, A.M. (2019). Examining the Implications of Differentiated Instruction for High School Students’ Self-Actualization. International Journal of Education and Practice.
Wang, Y., Huebner, E.S., & Tian, L. (2021). Parent-child cohesion, self-esteem, and academic achievement: The longitudinal relations among elementary school students. Learning and Instruction, 73, 101467.
da Silva, J.L., de Oliveira, W.A., Komatsu, A.V., Zequinão, M.A., Pereira, B.O., Caravita, S.C., Skrzypiec, G., & Silva, M.A. (2020). Associations Between Bullying and Depression Among Students in School Transition. Trends in Psychology, 28, 72 - 84.
Boulton, M., & Underwood, K. (1992). Bully/victim problems among middle school children. The British journal of educational psychology, 62 ( Pt 1), 73-87 .
Muzi, S., Rogier, G., & Pace, C.S. (2022). Peer Power! Secure Peer Attachment Mediates the Effect of Parental Attachment on Depressive Withdrawal of Teenagers. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19.