Rethinking Adolescence: Using Story to Navigate Life's Uncharted Years - Hardcover

Ambrosio, Jay D'

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1578864763 ISBN 13: 9781578864768

Publisher: R&L Education, 2006

Synopsis

More than ever before, students need guidance and support from the adults in their lives. Here, author Jay D' Ambrosio suggests practical approaches for connecting with young people at the level of the heart through the utilization of myths, stories, movies, and songs. He contends that Story speaks to both students and adults on a spiritual dimension and will help adult readers better comprehend the condition of those challenges common to adolescence. Throughout each chapter, this book explores the wisdom necessary to face such trials that can be found in Homer's Odyssey and other great stories.

Rethinking Adolescence includes:
·Discussion topics and answers for use with adolescents
·Recommendations of movies and stories that are effective in dealing with various issues

This book should be useful to parents, teachers, youth workers, counselors, clergy, and mentors.

About this title

About the Author

Jay D' Ambrosio is an ancient history teacher, mentor, and conflict mediator at Seneca Valley Middle School in Harmony, Pennsylvania. To visit his website, go to: http://www.eteaching101.com/

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Something is missing. You sense it when you leave for work in the morning or return home after a long day. You catch the scent of it when you gaze upon a sunset over the ocean or stare into the starry night sky. From deep within we wonder if there is more to life than the relentless machinations of our days. So many adults bury this feeling with busyness and distraction. To acknowledge it would render the things we ve learned to cling to for significance and security meaningless. So we shove our hearts and that sense of emptiness down into a corner of ourselves that rarely sees the light of day and continue on in the existence we have created for ourselves. We find our worth in the cars we drive, the house in which we survive, and the promotions for which we strive. There is however, a stage in life where that hunger inside us is close to the surface, where we are as human beings, uncut, raw. When we journey through the adolescence of our lives, there we encounter the monsters and the demons that cause us to fear really listening to the powerful longings of our hearts. The wounds we receive in adolescence shape our days and our personalities and set self-imposed limits upon our lives.

Those who work with adolescents, either in the role of educator, youth worker, clergy, counselor, or parent, are constantly seeking out better ways of understanding the trials these young people experience during the school age years. This book will suggest practical approaches for connecting with young people at the level of the heart, and seek out kernels of wisdom for doing so, through the utilization of myths, stories, movies, and songs. Story speaks to both students and adults, on a spiritual dimension. Story will be used to help adult leaders better comprehend the condition of the young and its use will also be suggested for helping the young to better comprehend themselves. This book is not intended to replace current methods of adolescent counseling, therapy, or mentoring. Rather, the aim is to help adult readers see and understand the real significance of the battles that young people face on a daily basis and ways in which we can guide and assist, by extracting kernels of wisdom from Homer s Odyssey and other great stories.

Edition details

• Publisher: R&L Education
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1578864763
• ISBN 13: 9781578864768
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 166