Right now, it could be very easy for us to immediately say that we do all the things mentioned below because we feel challenged or really believe in our hearts that we do these things. This is not judgmental, but rather developmental, so please make this reflective exercise positive by design, not negative by default.
This interesting list was compiled by S. Hein, a teenager. She began it on January 26, 2005 in Jaen, Peru. While we must be mindful of the underlying South American cultural perspectives, it certainly is excellent food for thought for us as parents and teachers to reflect on. Let’s begin:
I am sitting by a waterfall now. It is so healthy for me to be surrounded by nature, listening to the sound of water. They never taught me this in school. Here are more things they never taught me in school.
They didn't teach me:
- to be forgiving. Sarah taught me this when she was 12 and she would say, "It's okay, best friend."
- that I could learn more from children and teenagers than I could from adults
- to take children’s and teenagers' feelings seriously
- the importance of travelling
- to walk away from people who were hurting me, mocking me, judging me and disapproving of me
- to walk away from people who were trying to control me, who were pressuring me or manipulating me
- to see when someone was trying to do any of these things. They never even mentioned any of these things
- the difference between deserved and undeserved guilt
- about emotionally abusive parents. Steph and Tatiana at 14, and Nicole at 17, did
- how to live simply
- what was really important in life and what was unnecessary
- much, if anything, about Ghandi
- anything about Buddhism, Hinduism or any of the worlds non-Christian belief systems
- anything about personal growth and self-help literature
- to know myself
- to identify my emotional needs
- to believe in myself
- to understand how my family was hurting me and using me to try to fill their unmet emotional needs
- the names of my feelings
- how to express my feelings with feeling words
- anything about emotional literacy
- that we are each primarily responsible for our own feelings and we have more control over them than most people realise
- that it is healthy for me to write
- anything about depression or why a teenager would want to kill or cut themselves
- how to listen
- how to show understanding
- anything about compassion
- how to silently hug a crying child
- that there is already too much competition in the world
- to see the many ways people distract themselves and numb themselves from their feelings
- the difference between fear and respect or respect and obedience
- that making "good" grades doesn´t make someone a good person
- to think about the difference between a good "Christian", (or a good "Muslim", "Jew" etc) and a good human being
- that patriotism is not good for the world
- that the word "good" is a very subjective word
- about the messages in songs like John Lennon's “Imagine.”
- anything at all about children of alcoholics
- anything about emotional, verbal or psychological abuse
- that people will try to use you in all kinds of ways, and that if you obey these people long enough, there will be nothing left of you
- anything at all about love
- that it feels good to help people
- to follow my heart.
