My uncle had my “star chart” created the day I was born. He promptly called my mother and asked whether she would permit him to be my agent when the time was right…
My mother told me this story when I was surviving the throes of pre-teen insecurity. I promptly took up acting, assuming I would fulfill my birthday horoscope’s prophecy as a superstar…
Today, I’m neither an astrology fanatic nor a superstar (not yet, anyway). I am a daughter, a wife, a mom, a friend, a Labrador Retriever owner, an outdoor enthusiast, a knitress, a sushi fanatic, an even bigger ice cream fanatic, a former Facebook fanatic (self-demoted to contented FB participant), a lifelong student, a cancer survivor, and a general enthusiast. And I am a teacher…
I’m likely not the smartest, most creative, most experienced, nor most ambitious colleague you could find at your (or your child’s) school. So why look to me for ideas and advice about working with teens? I suppose I have a knack for working with teens, for lighting them up. People tend to like me. Teenagers tend to like me. I like people. And I simply love teenagers (even days that I can barely stand them…perhaps especially days that I can barely stand them).
I have close to a decade of hours clocked with teens. From this, I present to you ideas and advice about interacting with and (ideally) engaging teenagers–whether they are your students, your children, or yourselves!
Prolixity aside, I am quite certain that, in those moments I know I have engaged a teenager–when I have pushed through her barrier of fatigue, his barrier of indifference, her barrier of frustration, or his barrier of incredulity–I feel like a superstar. So, Uncle Frank, perhaps we should be talking about this agent bit, after all!
In the meantime, please write or comment with your questions, concerns, and words of wisdom about every facet of teaching teens…
