Extracurricular Activities as a Condition for the Intellectual Development of Young Teenagers

Abstract

The paper introduces the organizational and methodological aspects of extracurricular activities as a necessary condition for the intellectual development of young teenagers, who usually demonstrate a striking imbalance in mathematical, non-science, and technical abilities, as well as a partial decrease in non-verbal abilities. The article describes various psychological and pedagogical approaches to the issue of intellectual abilities. The research objective was to study the forms and methods of organizing extracurricular activities that ensure the intellectual and personality development in 11–13-year-olds. A set of controlled experiments proved their efficiency and demonstrated some intellectual improvement in the test subjects. For instance, the research resulted in an obvious increase in the number of test subjects with a medium level of logical thinking, mathematical skills, speech development, and the ability to compare concepts.