I recently wrote about the need to engage youth more deeply in matters of race/ethnicity and gender identity. The importance of these sorts of conversations—especially in the context of youth in foster care—is treated with a lot of thought and wisdom in Casey Family Program’s Knowing Who You Are curriculum. Read more…
I’ve been thinking of ways of making my identity self-portrait activity a bit more rigorous. The results from the pilot were useful because it revealed what young people tended to leave out of their portraits when representing their identities. In an earlier post I mentioned how I really had to Read more…
Yesterday I wrote that the notion of “staying true to yourself” is overrated, but you didn’t think I’d really leave it at that, did you? The point I’m really driving at is this: knowing your story, and being open to editing it, is the most important personal skill to develop. Being able to communicate it to others is a close second. This has been weighing on my mind a lot lately because it’s an idea that I see surfacing in so many different areas. Lately I’ve been reading texts in social entrepreneurship, marketing, and various psychological fields, and the same questions repeatedly arise: What is your story? How did you get to where you are right now? Why do you do what you do?
The skill entails being able to integrate the significant elements of your life and personality into a meaningful and compelling narrative. Not only can you appeal to others more powerfully through the magic of storytelling, but you can live your life more authentically and freely when you know what drives you (to positive and negative behaviors), what has shaped your fundamental outlook, what you believe and cherish most deeply, and so on. You can see how this would be immensely useful not only in defining and marketing your enterprise, but defining and marketing yourself professionally and socially.
But that is only part of the exercise. The second half is being able to recognize when the story you’ve been telling about yourself (both to yourself and others) no longer fits or needs to change. We can’t alter the facts of our past, but we can always reinterpret them through a new lens. A slight shift in the present can bring into view possible selves that we had never been able to imagine. (more…)
This is especially true if your sense of identity has never been thrown into crisis and is largely in line with the outlooks and values that you grew up with. Adolescents necessarily go through a period of “identity crisis” as a result of the changes in their bodies, hormones, and brain development. One of the great lessons of developmental psychologist Erik Erikson is that this crisis period is an optimal time to explore one’s identity: to question their morals, preconceptions, roles, and relationships, and to arrive either at a renewed commitment to those principles, perspectives, etc. or to form new ones. This phenomenon is called “identity achievement.” At the opposite end of the spectrum is “identity foreclosure,” where individuals have a high level of commitment to their self-concept with a very low level of exploration.
An example of a foreclosed individual is the person who joins the family business or enters his father’s profession with nary a consideration of alternative paths. The danger, of course, is a mid-life crisis. Adolescent expert Susan M. Kools has shown that youth in foster care are especially vulnerable to identity foreclosure, since they are pushed into adulthood earlier than their peers.
It sounds counter-intuitive—even irresponsible or heretical—to suggest it, but what if we took a step back from pushing our young people to commit immediately and steadfastly to their goals, and instead encouraged them to look more deeply into themselves, and explore their options more broadly? (more…)
One of the things I love talking to young people about is their budding identities. There are a couple of Zits comic strips that I like to use to explore the theme. One of them involves Jeremy standing before a mirror, assuming different flavors of masculinity, only to turn into a little boy when his mom catches him in the act. Seeing Jeremy try on different identities is a great way to get a conversation started about identity exploration. We all “try on” different identities or emphasize certain aspects of ourselves at different times, and it can be a bit awkward and embarrassing when someone calls us out on it—especially when we are in our teens.
When I ran a discussion on identity for a writing workshop, we kept the group discussion on a largely abstract level, and then I had the youth write about their personal experiences afterward. With the mentoring group I work with, however, I redesigned the activity as a partner exercise with youth and their mentors. Each young person would write a list of the most important elements in his identity, and then represent that visually in his self-portrait. During presentations, the group would then respond to the portrait, by commenting on what was interesting or surprising about it, or naming other characteristics that they thought were fundamental to the presenter’s identity.
To model the exercise, I very quickly sketched out an impromptu identity self-portrait. Do pardon the scrawl: (more…)
I’m excited to share with you the overview of the program I’m running for Youth Communication. I’ve put together a workbook for the participants, with activity sheets and space for notes and freewriting.
TRANSITIONS TO ADULTHOOD:
YOUTH COMMUNICATIONS WRITING WORKSHOP 2012
Overview
This sequence of discussions is designed for a group of young people (ages 15 to 20) attending Youth Communication’s 2012 Summer Writing Workshop. In line with this year’s theme of identity, this two-day program gives participants a rich and structured context in which to explore their own passages to adulthood.
The underlying premise is that becoming an adult is not something that happens overnight (on your 18th or 21st birthday), but rather something that takes place gradually and not without some amount of heartache and hardship.
Together we will discuss the concept of adulthood, beginning first with major institutional definitions coming from the legal and scientific fields, and moving through developmental psychology toward cultural definitions in the realms of sociology and anthropology.
The goal is for participants to use this knowledge as a framework for formulating personal definitions of adulthood that resonate in their own lives, and also for generating stories for YCTeen or Represent.
Syllabus (more…)
This year’s theme for Youth Communication’s Summer Writing Workshop is identity, so I’ve been working on tailoring my workshop material around that topic. In discussing adolescence, for example, I won’t be focusing on the teen brain. Instead, I want to emphasize what child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr. Ruth Talbot has Read more…
I’ve been neglecting this blog, I know, but it’s been for good reason. I’m developing a couple new workshops, one on the teen brain for New Alternatives for Children (more on that later), and two for Youth Communication‘s Summer Writing Workshop (apply here). This year’s theme is identity, so they Read more…
Someone recommended I read a paper by Profs. Daphna Oyserman and Mesmin Destin on a social psychological framework called Identity-Based Motivation (IBM). The model offers not only an explanation for poor educational outcomes among certain populations (especially for low-income black and Hispanic boys), but it also offers a modest but proven method for closing the gap between students’ desire to do well and actual academic attainment. (more…)