Monday, March 25, 2013

Endless Adolescence

“We place kids in schools together with hundreds, sometimes thousands, of other kids typically from similar economic and cultural backgrounds. We group them all within a year or so of one another in age. We equip them with similar gadgets, expose them to the same TV shows, lessons, and sports. We ask them all to take almost the exact same courses and do the exact same work and be graded relative to one another. We give them only a handful of ways in which they can meaningfully demonstrate their competencies. And then we’re surprised they have some difficulty establishing a sense of their own individuality.”  --- from Dr. Joe Allen's book Escaping the Endless Adolescence.

as reported in Po Bronson's blog Why teenagers are growing up so slowly today.

(Thanks to Kay Burkhalter for sending this along to me.)

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