“Getting youth to share their narratives of meaning is not hard. ….This is because stories are how adolescents transform fantasies and experiences into convictions that orient their lives. And, because narratives shape adolescents’ life-orientations, they can be understood as expressions of faith. Even when narrative themes are drawn from ostensibly secular as opposed to religious sources, the stories adolescents tell of themselves (either internally or conversationally) convey a faith that there is indeed meaning in one’s life, that there are morals to one’s stories.” (Adolescents at School, p.197)

When I started reading this chapter, I wondered how much faith was really going to have to do with adolescent pedagogy and identity. Today it seems more and more that atheism is a pervasive view among youth and faith is not so much a mainstream part of American culture as it was half a century ago. This is certainly not to say that I don’t respect and welcome all faiths in my classroom. This idea of adolescent ‘faith’ in the self as a part of identity development really resonated with me and gives a whole new definition to the idea of ‘faith.’

Adolescents search for meaning constantly, including into adulthood, and the stories they weave around their personal experiences are some of the most basic threads they can extend to grasp a purpose in their life. This can be wild and rash (as is the adolescent brain) – if a teenager cannot find a romantic partner, for example, they may deem their Self useless. They compare themselves to those around them and see others creating narratives of relationships and wonder why they can’t do the same. This is but one example – the narrative of the Self can be a positive force, too. A student may take in material – a movie, say, or a song, or story – that really resonates with them, and patch an aspect of it into their mental identity collage. “This is something for me,”  they feel when consuming this source. And through that process, a little chip of the Self is filled in.

This chapter made me reflect on how an adolescent’s faith in their self is not something to be admonished or written off as mere narcissism. Faith in the self needs constant cultivating and reinforcing, through the amassing of cultural capital as well as positive lived experiences. If a kid doesn’t have a strong and positive sense of self, this can follow them the rest of their life. Knowing who you are at your core is the basis for a life positively and thoroughly lived.