Identity and Possibility:Adolescent Development and the Potential of Schools

“It [Identity] is, rather, the lived experience of an ongoing process – the process of integrating successes, failures, routines, habits, rituals, novelties, thrills, threats, violations, gratifications, and frustrations into a coherent and evolving interpretation of who we are.  Identity is the embodiment of self-understanding.  We are who we understand ourselves to be, as that understanding is shaped and lived out in everyday experience” (Nakkula, 11).

Reflection: Each word in this passage hits my understanding of identity that is deep in my heart.  Identity is a self-awareness a person develops through the experience in his or her life.  It should be a status a person gives to himself or herself.  Most teenagers develop their own dignity in adolescence and they care about people treating them as adults.  In the context of school, teachers and school counselors are responsible to build a supportive environment for adolescents to know themselves better and understand others better.  Positive interpersonal relationship greatly contributes to identity development of adolescents.  I truly believe that identity is the outcome of the social lives of people.