The Big Questions, ch. 10

http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/cognition/piaget.html

 

 

So I was really thinking about the switch from "possibility as a subset of reality" to "reality as a subset of possibility" as adolescents transition from concrete to formal operational thinking.  And I thought, jeez, I don't think I see very much of this in my students.  I then discovered the graph above.  Data show that only 30-35% of high school students are in the formal operational stage.  I definitely have observed a good amount of this thinking in my older students, particularly those in the upper level courses.  But the average freshman?  I feel like most of them are like Calvin in the cartoon above ("most" is hyperbole, but i'm not exaggerating by much.  And I don't mean to belittle the younger students by saying this, it's just that they are not in that cognitive stage yet .  Nakkula and Toshalis say that we as educators should be there for students who are exploring the "big questions", and help guide them if they ask.  But maybe we might play a bigger role in helping students ask the questions in the first place.  I say this because there are a couple of specific times during the year when this comes up in biology class (nutrient cycling - what happens when living things die, and of course, evolution) and it seems that when I talk about these topics, the kids act as if its the first time they have even considered life beyond the time and space in which they live.  --I'm very curious about how my case study student will react during these discussions, because as far as I can tell he has little or no third-person perspective-taking at all.  I'm reminded of the panels towards the end of Ayers that depict students running into their teachers outside of school...and none of them can believe their teachers are actually regular people who go to concerts or shop for new shoes!  Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that 30-35% number is correct, or maybe even a bit high...

One part of chapter ten I really like is the comparison of faith to a "kind of map".  "we need some larger sense of the direction of our movements and the social and moral terrain on which we live.  The need for a map is especially pronounced for adolescents, filled as they are with the vulnerabilities and possibilities recently revealed in the expansion of their minds and the formation of the identities".  (211)  At first I thought that the idea of faith as a map was limiting, in the sense that instead of having free will, we are on the road toward some pre-determined destination.  But I don't think that's what N & T (and Kaufman, whose idea this is) are implying.  They are simply saying that, when kids try and start making "sense of it all", it's much easier, and more productive, to think about it with this map as a backdrop.  Regardless of how the map is created (modeled by someone the student has a built a relationship with, fear of going to hell, etc) the map shows the road to being a good and decent person.  Hopefully. 

Whether or not adolescents are, or will soon be asking existential questions, it seems that we as educators can offer them some guidance.  Maybe we need to listen if they are struggling with it.  Maybe we need to help create their map.  Maybe we need to model traits such as empathy and tolerance.  And maybe in doing so, we can help co-author what might be the core that binds all other aspects of their identity together.  N & T write on page 226, "If we have helped an adolescent find a question he feels is worth asking and orienting his life around, we have done our job.  All we must do then is encourage him to go further, to seek out others, and to revel in the excitement of probing the depths of the human experience."



9

So, I've been doing some zooming lately, trying to find trends as I'm reading Nakkula and Toshalis.  I'm reminded of a "disclaimer" Dr. Horwitz mentioned about the set up of the chapters in Understanding Youth-- how they are compartmentalized and address each aspect of youth identity development separately, but in reality these aspects overlap one another in complex ways in each adolescent. N&T have interwoven narratives of individual students throughout to give a broader context and to show just how complex the interactions among these varying identities really are. 
It seems to me that N &T develop each chapter in a similar way.  They introduce the topic (gender, racial, ethnic, and sexual identity).  They emphasize how distracting it can be for students to deal with the topic, leaving them less than fully present as learners in the classroom.  They then make an apology for attempting to present a generalization of such complicated and multi-faceted issues.  This is followed towards the end of each chapter by the presentation of a fairly neat, tidy, and general version of identity development as it relates to the topic. 
I think overall N& T do a good job of offering educators multiple lenses through which we can view our students, and at the same time remaining humble about the fact that they are not offering a panacea for educating all students in our classrooms ("This is not a 'how to' book" -preface xiii). 
I only mention this progression that I have noticed within the chapters of Understanding Youth because we are getting further into our case studies and it just kind of hit me that the resolution of identity issues could help a struggling student more than any conventional remedy.  Today I sat in a parent conference with a student.  The result of the meeting was an extra help schedule that the student would have to follow--it included Tuesday and Thursday after school, Saturday school, and study halls.  Now this is nice, but I got the impression that the root of his struggles were more related to some of the issues N & T have discussed in recent chapters, as opposed to ability to comprehend academic content.  Maybe during these extra help sessions the teacher and student will build a relationship that might ultimately help the student, but I'm really afraid they won't and the student will become apathetic. 
Regarding Chapter 9:  I'm pretty much with everyone else in that I have no idea how I would start a conversation with a student about sexual identity or sex in general.  BUT I think that maybe that's up to the student.  It is our job to provide a space where a conversation about sexual-related issues could happen...
It's chapters like this that really help me put into perspective what students (including those in the culture of power) go through during a school day.  The things they must be preoccupied with.  The confusion.  In some cases the doubt and fear.  I think of how much energy all of that consumes--energy that is not being put into their learning in the classroom.