I discuss the complementary strengths of foundational literacy skills and foundational texts to support the academic and life journeys of Black adolescent males in this commentary. Foundational texts are defined as texts central to life-outcome, personal, intellectual, and professional trajectories accompanied by self-assurance while being…

This discussion article presents practices for designing more supportive and individualized writing tasks for adolescent and young adult students. The practices emerged from a synthesis of findings from a prior study in which we asked 79 undergraduates to talk about moments from their writing histories that made them feel proud of their writing.

Loneliness becomes more prevalent as youth transition from childhood into adolescence. A key underlying process may be the puberty-related increase in biological stress reactivity, which can alter social behavior and elicit conflict or social withdrawal (fight-or-flight behaviors) in some youth, but increase prosocial (tend-and-befriend) responses…

Children and adolescents need a vision of hope and success that will motivate them to take action. This discussion describes some ways of pondering the mandate in the Bible to care for the earth and for each other.

Developmental processes are embedded in social contexts, such as with family members. Adolescent development involves significant reorganization of the parent-adolescent relationship, which is fundamental to the continued psychosocial development of both the adolescent and the parent. In this article, we introduce the model of parent-adolescent…

The teenage years can be difficult, filled with questions, emotions, and decisions. For high-achieving adolescents who may experience asynchronous development or experience the world more intensely, these years can bring about intense emotions, feelings of isolation, or difficulty understanding the injustices of the world. Parents, may try to…

Well known for his pioneering work on place-based education, Sobel discusses the benefits of engaging adolescents in meaningful learning experiences through outdoor education. His case study focuses on a 'Forest Fridays' nature-based education program developed by Eliza Minnucci, an elementary teacher in Vermont, USA. Sobel's wife, Jennifer…

In the winter of 2014, four terrorists attacked a school in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), resulting in more than a hundred students' death. Twenty-two survivors (aged 10-18 years) with physical injuries were admitted to a private hospital in Karachi for further surgical and psychological interventions. The aim of this paper is to share a retrospective…

Preparing students with robust life skills, including social-emotional skills, is of paramount importance in today's world, particularly for children growing up in adversity. Dream a Dream was founded by 11 young people who wanted to engage with children who were terminally ill, abandoned, or HIV infected. The idea was to organize activities and…

Published in 1951, "The Catcher in the Rye" encapsulated teenage angst. Some time ago David Belbin mused about the influence of "Catcher" on the proliferation and popularity of YA literature. Salinger's recent death has sparked a renewed interest in his work and more attention on Holden and his inheritors. This article…

Research on the role of moral emotions in moral judgment, both in hypothetical dilemmas and in real-life moral decision making, has focused on preschool and elementary school age, with few studies spanning a larger age range, into adolescence and adulthood. The present special issue addresses a neglected area, the development of moral emotions and…

In the light of Martin Heidegger and Hubert Dreyfus's concepts of being-in-the-world and skillful coping, this article addresses disruptions students face in modern society. Such disruptions involve pressure for achievement and lack of belonging to communities. In the discussion, the article presents the terms "being-disrupted" and…

Adolescence is a period in everybody's life that is usually referred to as "time that everybody must go through" or "parents' hell". Transition between childhood and adulthood is indeed of great importance in everybody's life, but it is usually accompanied with a variety of questions, problems, dilemmas and a constant need to…

Parents and teachers alike express concern about how much time teenagers spend on their cell phones today, but what do the teenagers themselves think? Andrew Housiaux, a philosophy teacher at a boarding school in Massachusetts, asked his students to give up their cell phones for three days and write about the experience. Their reflections showed…

Coaches have the possibility to shape their athletes' experiences in sport and build a strong skillset, particularly the growth of mental toughness. It is important for athletes to develop the mental and physical components needed to overcome obstacles and maintain consistency. This article provides strategies for high school coaches to implement…