It's extremely eye-opening when assigning research papers to students and viewing the results. In an accepting and hostile-less environment the range of topics and, more specifically, the depths the students go into the topics, are unbound from outside control. This allows an educator opportunities to honestly estimate what students are concerned with alongside their ability to deliver an argument. Beyond analyzing sports' history or trivial topics like "Why do we dream?," students want to tackle subjects like parenting, effects of stress and disorders. It is telling because even as we try to communicate with and raise children rarely do we ask for their opinion on the matter of just that: parenting.
For students around the age of adolescence there is a critical psychological shift taking place. The formation of an identity, building self-esteem, and gradually accepting the rules or guidelines society imposes are the core concerns among these shifts. As the shifts (broader understandings about the self) take place students will, no doubt, be bombarded by questions demanding that they know where there life is heading. "Where are you going to college?" "What will you major in?" "Have you thought about where you will work for the summer?" These are all questions asked without consideration. Even as the questioner asks, they are probably imposing their own experiences within the conversation. Instead of hearing the answers in context, what occurs when the answers do not configure correctly with the experiences of the questioner is frustration, hopelessness, leading to other questions, instead, like "What's wrong with you?," or even better threats: "Well, you better find out soon! You don't want to end up on the streets."
The current society that we've built up allows almost zero time to go through (here's psychology for you) Erik Erikson's "Identity-versus-identity confusion" stage. There is more of a push to impose identities on young adolescents: Stop acting that way, that's not how it is done, this is not where you should be...which only creates the confusion part rather than allowing the teen time to disseminate amongst possible ways to live in the world. Putting it another way, approach from the context that, while they may be perceptive, teens do not have background experience to draw on in order to fully answer questions about their future. Forms of ridicule about their uncertainty take place in the absence of creating an understanding. Disgust rises over acceptance and these feelings are embedded in the psyche.
The issues of why American schools perform much lower than other countries, or why Millennials are flocking home after completing yet another round of schooling, and seemingly blindly feeling their way around society, fall right here.
At the ages of 12 years old and up is where ridicule is built and forged and exacerbated. This is the age that openly ridicules and begins to form trenches between the 'others.' Explain another moment in life when one is more aware of his/her place while questioning others' in the world? In adulthood, a regular return to the memories and past moments of importance occurs. Time and again these moments are assessed and categorized as moments when one 'fit in' and felt safe or as moments when one was feeling threatened, perhaps picked on. The perfectionism, everybody constantly needing to know where they are going, how long it will take to get there, maybe even parents' begrudging arguments to get a job, are all memories and thoughts that become engrained as the only way to live. A thorough effect takes place beyond adolescence and results in these same ideas being seen over and over, again, that it is all right to step on one and other, that it is all right to position oneself in a positive light and portray another negatively. It is no secret teens continually express stress as their ultimate torturer brought on by an amount of developed thought concerning bullies and cliques in the arena of school. There is pressure to judge or be judged, followed by assumptions that this teen behavior is just a 'phase.' Yet, it is not just a phase. The reactions to and actions against behavior will be held onto and make or break a more matured person when they actually need to rely on their emotions, self-esteem or feelings of worth. Likewise, later on the adult has an ability to dissect behavior allowing reasonable and fulfilling long-term goals in exchange of reactionary questions like "How did things get this way?"
At the ages of 12 years old and up is where ridicule is built and forged and exacerbated. This is the age that openly ridicules and begins to form trenches between the 'others.' Explain another moment in life when one is more aware of his/her place while questioning others' in the world? In adulthood, a regular return to the memories and past moments of importance occurs. Time and again these moments are assessed and categorized as moments when one 'fit in' and felt safe or as moments when one was feeling threatened, perhaps picked on. The perfectionism, everybody constantly needing to know where they are going, how long it will take to get there, maybe even parents' begrudging arguments to get a job, are all memories and thoughts that become engrained as the only way to live. A thorough effect takes place beyond adolescence and results in these same ideas being seen over and over, again, that it is all right to step on one and other, that it is all right to position oneself in a positive light and portray another negatively. It is no secret teens continually express stress as their ultimate torturer brought on by an amount of developed thought concerning bullies and cliques in the arena of school. There is pressure to judge or be judged, followed by assumptions that this teen behavior is just a 'phase.' Yet, it is not just a phase. The reactions to and actions against behavior will be held onto and make or break a more matured person when they actually need to rely on their emotions, self-esteem or feelings of worth. Likewise, later on the adult has an ability to dissect behavior allowing reasonable and fulfilling long-term goals in exchange of reactionary questions like "How did things get this way?"
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