An excerpt from this article by Lorna Collier appears in the December 2018 Council Chronicle.
How 鈥淩ethinking Adolescence鈥� Can Improve Your Teaching
Think teen or tween and what words come to mind? Hormonal, moody, impulsive, narcissistic, idealistic and rebellious, perhaps? How about identity-seeking, peer-obsessed, and parent-avoiding?
When English educators Robert Petrone, Sophia Sarigianides, and Mark Lewis talk to veteran and preservice teachers, they ask them to describe adolescents. Often, they hear words that portray teens in a mostly negative light, including certain common stereotypes.
Teachers aren鈥檛 the only ones to hold such views.
The attitudes are pervasive鈥攁nd arguably even worse鈥攖hroughout pop culture and among the general public, notes Lewis, associate professor of literacy education at Loyola University in Maryland. He first noticed this when, as a middle school teacher, he would mention his occupation. People would be aghast, suggesting that his students were 鈥渟ome sort of creatures we couldn鈥檛 work with鈥� and that his workdays must be 鈥渉orrible,鈥� says Lewis. Yet he found his students to be a joy鈥攖houghtful, introspective, caring, and empathetic.
Petrone, associate professor of English education at the University of Missouri, has encountered similar attitudes about high schoolers, again in contradiction with his experiences. Or he鈥檚 been warned that if he has a child, 鈥渋t鈥檚 like, 鈥極h my God, wait until he鈥檚 a teenager鈥�. . . . We would never talk about a whole group of other people that way, with such ease,鈥� he says.
Petrone, Lewis, and Sarigianides, associate professor of English education at Westfield State University in Massachusetts, have studied how adolescents are perceived, and how this mostly negative construct of adolescence affects the teaching of English language arts.
The trio鈥檚 book, (NCTE, 2017), explores how teachers can use this awareness to improve teaching to teens.
What鈥檚 Wrong with Viewing Teens This Way?
In Nancy Lesko鈥檚 Act Your Age! A Cultural Construction of Adolescence (Routledge, 2nd edition 2012)鈥攁 book that influenced Sarigianides, Petrone, and Lewis鈥攕he finds four common key beliefs about adolescents:
- They can be understood by knowing their exact age
- They focus nearly exclusively on their peers
- They are governed by their hormones
- They experience a slow, leisurely coming-of-age into adulthood
Yet such beliefs ignore wide differences among adolescents, including those of race, class, gender, sexuality, and culture, say Sarigianides, Petrone, and Lewis.
For example, students who aren鈥檛 from upper or middle classes may have to care for siblings or work to support the family, and don鈥檛 have the luxury of as-seen-on-TV carefree teen lives.
Sarigianides grew up the child of Greek immigrants and was similarly shut out of stereotypical middle-class adolescence. 鈥淚 was super-responsible as a kid; I worked from high school on: weekends, vacations, everything. In some ways, I had access to a typical white American adolescence, but I knew in other ways I wasn鈥檛 allowed to have that.鈥�
The current construct of adolescence is relatively recent, Lewis says. 鈥淗ow people thought about what it meant to be 15 or 16 in the 1800s is much different than it is now.鈥� Then, teens often held down responsible jobs; age-based universal education wasn鈥檛 yet the common practice.
Today鈥檚 stereotypes surrounding adolescence can cause problems for both students and teachers, says Lewis. Students may think they are supposed to behave in a certain way鈥攁nd wonder what鈥檚 wrong with them if they don鈥檛.
Teachers, especially new ones, may focus overmuch on classroom management in anticipation of having to rein in a pack of unruly teens.
On the other hand, when the stereotypes are made visible, teens and teachers benefit in several ways. Teens may realize they are OK after all, while teachers may find that their students are capable of more than they expected.
鈥淭he way English teachers think about the students in front of them matters greatly,鈥� says Sarigianides. When teachers are willing to discuss adolescence as a relatively recent, historically constructed category, 鈥渋t opens up fresh ways for youth to see themselves, to function in our classes, to function in the world.鈥�
Literature Aimed at Adolescents May Contain Negative Stereotypes
One challenge for teachers is how to teach with this awareness given the pervasiveness of the adolescent construct in literature.
鈥淚f you read YAL [young adult literature] aimed at middle-school teens, there鈥檚 a lot of angst, not fitting in, and rebelling,鈥� Lewis says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 very typical and I would say poor middle school YAL.鈥�
Fortunately, more positive YAL does exist, he says. Examples of books with less stereotypical renderings of teen characters, says Lewis, include Homeland and Little Brother by Cory Doctorow and Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin.
Other titles to consider, which are discussed in Rethinking the 鈥淎dolescent鈥� in Adolescent Literacy, include Weetzie Bat, by Francesca Lia Block, and Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, by Benjamin Alire S谩enz.
鈥淚 think the best YA writing . . . operates under the idea that these are real people and not this age-based category,鈥� says Sarigianides. Young adult books she鈥檚 liked recently include We Were Liars by E. Lockhart and Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Perez.
Literature that isn鈥檛 positive or that is stereotypical can still be presented to students, the authors say, but teachers can use a 鈥測outh lens鈥� to critically examine an author鈥檚 assumptions about adolescents and how these affect the text.
Responses so far? Most students 鈥渓ove it,鈥� says Sarigianides, who has been teaching this since 2006.
Teachers鈥� reactions have been more mixed. 鈥淭he preservice teachers often resist,鈥� says Lewis. 鈥淚 have a lot who walk out of my college classrooms who will not and haven鈥檛 changed their minds yet.鈥�
One issue: 鈥淭hey鈥檝e just taken educational psychology that told them over and over again what adolescents are like, and then here I come with a social constructionist view. It鈥檚 hard for them to marry the two.鈥�
Yet Lewis, Petrone, and Sarigianides note that science about youth development isn鈥檛 the be-all and end-all of understanding how adolescents operate. Research about the “teen brain,” says Petrone, 鈥渄oes not often account for the many, many young people for whom these 鈥榯ruths鈥� do not hold true.鈥�
What鈥檚 most important, says Petrone, is for teachers to recognize how experiences of adolescence vary鈥攁nd for teachers 鈥渢o reflect upon the filters or lenses they are using to come to know young people. . . .”
鈥淵oung people are typically more capable and able than many of our public institutions, particularly schools, give them credit for or allow them to be.鈥�
Lorna Collier’s articles about education and technology have appeared in US News & World Report, the Chicago Tribune, and MSN.com. Reach her at Lorna@LornaCollier.com