Currently Browsing: Feature
Students reflect on positive effects of peer pressure
.
Written by Joel Fennimore, Staff Writer
When most people think of peer pressure, groups of bullies, drugs and school counselors comes to mind. Although most people feel that peer pressure is always negative, there are several positive aspects as well.
“Peer pressure is one of the biggest deals for high schoolers. While it is both good and bad, it’s more good to be honest,” Cole Church, a guidance counselor at West, said.
Although most students only think about the negative aspects of peer pressure, positive peer pressure occurs just as often. For example, fashion is often influenced by peers. Shoes like Converse, Vans and TOMS are popular, which influences many people to wear them. Since these shoes are very popular, it would be no surprise if anyone were influenced to wear them.
“Most of us dress according to peer pressure,” Church said. “This form of peer pressure is not hurting you in any way, so it can be perceived as positive.”
Positive peer pressure can influence students to dress like others, but it can also have a positive influence in school. Many students take honors classes because of their friends. Positive peer pressure is defined as being influenced by others to do something good.
“I tell many students that they need to be in honors classes because they should be in a class where their peers are challenging themselves, studying hard and listening to the teacher. We put them in the honors class and they usually do very well,” Church said. “Since our peers are in the honors class with us they are hopefully working to their full potential. This will make us want to do just as well. We will end up getting a good grade, which is a positive thing. Therefore, it results in positive peer pressure.”
Jake Ashba, a freshman at West, was influenced by positive peer pressure to be a part of West’s production of Grease.
“A lot of my friends were doing it, so I decided to join the cast because it would be a good time to hang out with people and have fun,” Ashba said.
Ashba joined Grease two weeks before the first show. He had volunteered for stage crew and he was going to help with the lights.
“The first day I came to rehearsal, the lights and sound people weren’t doing much, so Mrs. Cooper asked me if I’d rather be in the ensemble for the day to see if I liked that better than helping with lights. So, I joined the ensemble for the day, and I really liked it, and it went from there,” Ashba said.
Ashba ended up having so much fun with the ensemble that he wanted to do that instead of help with lights. His friends also begged him to stay in the ensemble. This peer pressure influenced him to stay in the ensemble, and because of this, he got a chance to become an understudy for the character Vince Fontaine, and eventually got the actual part.
While positive peer pressure can pressure students into getting good grades and encourage people to try activities, it can also help fight acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), get youth excited about democracy and help prevent tuberculosis. While these situations are rather random and bizarre, they occur because of peer pressure according to www.fastcoexist.com.
Www.fastcoexist.com talks about three programs that harness the power of positive peer pressure. These programs include Lovelife, Otpor, and directly observed treatment-short course (DOTS). Lovelife is a “successful youth program in South Africa that fights AIDS by creating a positive youth culture around sports, parties and multimedia storytelling, including short message service (SMS) campaigns, advice columns, magazines and a reality show,” according to www.fastcoexist.com.
Otpor is a “nonviolent youth political movement that arose in Serbia just before the 2000 elections and it used basically the same strategy as Lovelife: rock music, parties and fun, this time to get youth excited about democracy,” as stated by www.fastcoexist.com.
These two programs use peer pressure to get youth involved in things such as government. Since they want to have fun but also learn about society, it influences them to make choices based on what they learned.
Last but not least, www.fastcoexist.com talked about DOTS.
“Basically, it’s a buddy who comes to your house every day and watches you swallow your pills. When DOTS came to China, the cure rate for tuberculosis went from 54 percent to 90 percent. Even though it’s not the kind of peer pressure that involves a rock concert, plans like DOTS work and are cheap and effective,” www.fastcoexist.com stated.
Email This Post 
Print This Post
Loading ...
Leave a Reply