My friends did it too...

I do agree that peers have very strong influence in student life since it took almost one-third
day for a student to learn together in my country, Indonesia. They learn and play together maybe
longer than the time they spend with their parents or family. Therefore, it is important to notice how
the peers that are created in our learning situation. The peers will influence in a lot of area of their
life such as how to speak, how to think and how to behave. We have to question our selves, do the
peer it the positive or negative one?

Most of the time, peer pressured is discussed in adolescence area, since according to the
psychological development, they started find another source to look up instead of their prior
significant other. Yet, there was a study in Journal of Applied Behavior (Smith and Fowler, 1984) that
explained the power of classroom peers among the kindergarten student. They found that
monitoring peer intervention was successfully reducing the negative behavior. It ashowed that peer
preassure can have a significant positive effect. We can shape an expected behavior for a student by
making the supportive and positive peers in the class.

In my experience, since I more often teach the younger student, I noticed that kids also learn
by imitating what their friends doing during the class. When they saw their friends doing somethig
that comes back with some rewards or possitive reaction, they wanted to follow or imitate. When
they see the teacher sit nicely and talk properly they also will imitate. Therefore, as the teacher, we
must make the classroom peer are supportive for the learning environment. It is simliar with the
learning theory from Bandura (1925) that is called Social-Learning Theory.

For older student, like in the primary area, creating a supportive learning environment can
be done by giving them some case to discuss or do some project together which make they have
interaction. They can learn from each other, moreover they can discuss about social rules that can
be applied into daily life. When the classroom has a supportive learning environement that are
created by the positive peer pressured. It will make the student enjoy the learning process. They also
will not easily to give up because they have friends who support and help them.

As the teacher, we can also observe their strength and weakness when we assign the
student with some group project. We can notice who has the skill of leadership, who needs more
time to adapt to a new situation, who can be a good listener, who still need to be more patient and
so on. I had seen and I believe that peer can help the student not only having a new knowledge but
better interpersonal and intrapersonal skill. They know how to communicate towards other, how to
managed conflict and respect other person.

References

Smith, L.K, Fowler, A.S. 1984. Positive peer pressure : The effect of peer monitoring on children’s
disruptive behavior. Journal of Applied behavior.