Shadows Dancing on the Walls

Writing from historic Benson Hotel in Portland on the last night of a grand Oregon adventure.

Specifically, I just returned from Oregon's Adolescent Sexuality Conference in Seaside -- a classic "beach town" in a place one doesn't typically associate with beaches.

I am compelled to write this now because the last day of this conference was MIND BLOWING.

Today's keynote speaker was a prof from ?? Oregon State?? Ben Anderson-Nathe.  It would be impossible for me to re-create his points, but as this post title reflects he used Plato's cave allegory to talk about how we in the youth field are still essentially looking at shadows on the cave wall when it comes to our work. Caveat:  I'm writing this now largely for myself, so apologies if any random or familiar person reads this and is wondering what in the world I am ranting about.

He challenged the entire concept of "adolescence" and suggested that by continuing to wed ourselves to the term and idea, we are limiting how we approach our efforts AND continuing to "frame" young people negatively. In essence, he took the entire teenager/young people framing shift (hat tip to frenemies at the FrameWorks Institute) and NUKED it! Taking the whole "adolescence is an artificial construct" to it's natural conclusion ... and then it got really interesting.

My words, attempting to capture his sentiments:

• We use the term "positive youth development" without ever defining what "positive" really means -- and thereby allow the dominant perception of what young people should be to dictate it. When in fact that dominant perception is pretty crappy and framed by mis-perceptions in the first place.
• We get all caught up in the concept of "development" when again, we're pretty much stigmatizing young people as being all about that process instead of valuing their actions, the way they think or what they are outside of/in spite of a developmental context. And the kicker -- forcing a view through a developmental lens further entrenches all the negative stuff and makes it easy to continue treating them as other.

While lots of this totally aligned with my thinking and was essentially close to my own message -- where he took it had troubling(?) implications for my work.

• Where Gisela Konopka wanted adolescence viewed as a stage or life period that should stand on it's own without attaching it to "in-betweeness" I felt like Ben was saying we should eliminate it entirely! And that perhaps the construct was entirely culturally bound and intentionally constructed to essentially "keep them in their place."
• Our adolescent development training uses the "Zits" cartoons to highlight how adults are challenged by how development plays out with young people, he saw it as demonizing young people!
• That the developmental "tasks" we associate with adolescence are really life-long tasks. We say children don't really develop abstract thought until age X -- yet even young children (he talked about his daughter here) ask questions about highly abstract ideas around time and love and so forth. That brain development never really stops. That identity development never really stops.

It was a GREAT but JARRING experience to be in the seat squirming as my own sacred cows were sacrificed. Tables turned! He did to me what I do to others! heh.

I am deeply committed to the idea that when adults (society, systems, etc) don't understand development they don't support young people well. I am deeply committed to our adolescent development training.

But the ground is shaking.

I'm trying not to go into either/or thinking. I'm sure there's an "and" here. Perhaps it has to do with exclusively relying on development to explain or justify ALL adolescent behavior, brilliance, contribution, challenges. Perhaps it's more about being sure that we recognize -- and here's a Gisa idea again -- the amazing-ness of young people as being about THEM not just their developmental process.

Is this a process? Adults have to transition from 'young people are "other" because they don't share our values and behave like we do' TO 'young people are "us" yet hard to see that way because they are developing in a way different than we as adults are' TO 'young people are awesome'?

I don't know.  I'm going to be thinking -- and talking -- about this for a very long time.
 g/