Who are those teenagers anyway?

Who are those teenagers anyway?

Teens are forming their identities

Perhaps the most important tool for success with a teen audience is to really understand this stage of development and the risks and opportunities involved.

This time of life:
Adolescent people are in a stage of life distinguished by rapid physical, psychosocial and cognitive changes. Erik Erikson, educational psychologist, said “The growing and developing youths, faced with this physiological revolution within them, and with tangible adult tasks ahead of them are now primarily concerned with what they feel they are, and with the question of how to connect the roles and skills cultivated earlier with the occupational prototypes of the day.”(1) They are asking universal questions like “Who am I? Is this what I will be like from now on? Who needs me? Am I normal? Am I loving and lovable? Who thinks I am important? What can I do well? Who will show me how to...?”(2) Such questions lead to behaviors that are testing boundaries, testing society and testing out the adult-version of their identities.

Friends are important support and teachers of what is good and bad in life. Peers teach them what is acceptable and desired. This can lead to the formation of distinct social groups, that at times operate using exclusion and meanness. From an outsider, who has already navigated this stage of life, their behavior can seem cruel and narrow-minded, but developmentally, young people are protecting themselves and their own identity by filtering out what they don’t want to be and adhering strictly to the model they hope to emulate.  Erikson explains ”Adolescents not only help one another temporarily through much discomfort by forming cliques and by stereotyping themselves, their ideals, and their enemies; they also perversely test each other’s capacity to pledge fidelity...It is important to understand (which does not mean condone or participate in) such intolerance as a defense against a sense of identity confusion.”(3)

From the horse’s mouth:
Teenagers explain in their own words what teen identity means. Made by Anthony Clarke and Mark-Peter Johnson and Travis Cramer made this video for a high school class project where they interview classmates about what they think identity is. 

What do teenagers need?
Teenagers need to be supported through their formation of a positive identity. They desire independence, but also meaningful relationships with adults and each other. Also, abstract thought is beginning to develop. Erikson has described adolescence as “a psychosocial stage between childhood and adulthood, and between the morality learned by the child, and the ethics to be developed by the adult.”(4) Teenagers are in a stage of life where decisions they make can affect the rest of their lives. When proper support is absent during this time of added gravity, teenagers can become victims of unhealthy behavior in their quest for identity (substance abuse, unwanted pregnancy, delinquency, failing school). Deanna Banks Beane says “When a community cannot give its youth socially acceptable modes for carrying out the tasks of adolescence, the young people become vulnerable to other, less positive vehicles for finding answers to those universal Who am I? questions of youth.”(5)

What can museums do?
Youth need to develop positive relationships, opportunities, competencies, values and self-perceptions that help them grow into caring and responsible adults. Although school is where they spend the majority of their time, schools cannot provide all the experiences a young person might need. In reference to science literacy John H. Falk and Lynn D. Dierking propose that 95% of learning takes place outside of the classroom.(6) Like learning, positive developmental opportunities happen largely outside of the school, and can happen in museums!

Successful Programming is characterized by youth programs that are not designed to redeem those in need of “fixing.” Rather, they should be responsive to changing local needs and value young people’s input. “These programs do not view the young people as deficient, but rather as resources to be developed, valuable to themselves, their organization, and their communities.”(7) Because developmentally, teenagers are looking more to each other than any other group for information, fun, and acceptance, what better resource for reaching this audience than the teen audience themselves?! Youth program staff must be people who can be counted on. Consistency and stability are essential in establishing trusting relationships with young people. Also, understanding youth, loving them and holding them to high expectations are critical attributes for being an effective coach.

Do you have any examples of good youth programming?
Stay tuned! Our upcoming posts will highlight many opportunities for museums and teenagers to collaborate, thereby strengthening both parties, as well as the community.

References:

1. Erikson, E. H. (1963). Childhood and society (2nd ed., pp. 247-274). New York: W. W. Norton & Co.

2. Beane, Deanna Banks (2000). "Museums and Healthy Adolescent Development: What are we learning from research and practice." Journal of Museum Education, 25 (3), 3-8.

3. Erikson

4. Erikson

5. Beane

6. Falk, John H. and Lynn D. Dierking. "The 95% Solution." American Scientist. Nov-Dec 2010.

7. Beane