Respond to: The Scientific Study of Adolescent Development: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives
We all know that a human being will go through different stages, such as childhood, puberty, and adulthood, to complete his/her life journey. We also hear very often that adolescence is full of trouble, chaos and struggle. That is obviously the main reason why all my friends and families suggested me to teach elementary school, so as to avoid encountering and handling countless trickyproblems. I did take their advice, so I ended up mainly teaching from grade 1 to 6 in an international school in HK. The word “plasticity” and the idea of “positive youth development” described in the article caught my eyes, and had me to think from another perspective. Adolescence is a very critical stage, but surely not in a bad way. It brings an opportunity to start over, to correct, to improve, to grow, and to ready for adulthood. Adolescents are plasticity, the characteristic which all educators are long for. But concurrently the characteristic also brings vulnerability, which means adolescents are prone to be influenced, no matter by a peer, a teacher, or a type of social medias. As adolescents still spend most of their time at school, we should take this valuable chance to promote positive youth development, in order to prepare them to be responsible citizens.