Identity and Coming of Age

Introduction

How does one find his or her identity? We all struggle with identity at some point in our lives. People go through many experiences that contribute to our identity, and these experiences make us aware of the kind of people we want to be, and the contribution we want to make to others and to the world. I have decided to group these two themes together because most people experience the struggle with identity, and realize who they want to be and how they will contribute to the world when they are coming of age. A person “coming of age” can occur across many different age groups; furthermore, coming of age often happens more than once. For example, the person one was as a young child will be drastically different as that child progresses to fifth grade; that same child will experience different identity changes from fifth grade to adolescence. In fact, when the child grows from adolescence to adulthood, he or she will experience different identity changes.

As we go through our lives, we answer to the question, “What contribution are you making to the world?” Our contribution to the world is not only defined by what we do with our professional career, but how we interact with others outside of our professional career as well. Therefore, it is very important to find literature that shows how one makes a contribution to the world based on his or her identity. Furthermore, it is important to find literature for the classroom to show how children the same age as one’s students form his or her identity, and figure out the contribution he or she is making to the world. The book Looking for Alaska raises the question, “What is the most important question human beings must answer?”, to which my response is “What contribution are you making to the world?” The book follows the character Miles as he comes of age while at a boarding school called Culver Creek through the loss of his friend and love interest Alaska as he examines the contribution she made to the world. The book The House on Mango Street also examines a character coming of age as they form their identity and figure out the contribution they will make to the world. Both of these books examines different age groups, and how these changed from one period of his or her life to another.

I have chosen to group the book A Taste of Chicken Soup for the Teacher’s Soul under the theme identity and coming of age because although the book is a compilation of many stories that teach teachers many different lessons, I think that the main focus of the book as a whole is on both a students’ and a teachers’ identity. Furthermore, the book focuses a lot on a student’s coming of age in learning. Our careers about which we are passionate are part of our identity, and teacher’s experiences help them form their identity. A lot of the experiences the teachers share in the story made an impact on them and contributed to their identity. Likewise, the teachers in the stories also contributed to their students’ identities.

How Experience Developed My Identity

I will start my own coming-of-age story about how my identity developed with my freshman year of high school. I was the most care-free freshmen in the world. I use the term care-free very loosely because even though I wanted to be popular and have a lot of friends, unlike I have had in years past, I really did not care about being popular, as long as I can be me. I had a fascination with music, which I still have today. In my mind, the sky was the limit, and I wanted to be a singer. However, I was not a really good singer. I have had a passion for writing since probably before my freshman year of high school, and I liked to write poetry and songs, so I joined the poetry club that they did not run into my sophomore, junior, and senior year.

During my sophomore year, I learned how rare it was for a child from Pennsauken, such as myself to become a billboard chart-toping singer. I developed an interest in magazines and wrote for the school newspaper, and decided I want to become a journalist. During both my freshman and sophomore year, I swore I always loved writing but hated reading. I still hated reading because I never had the intention span to pick up a book, but I was fascinated by the works of literature I read both those years, particularly the Shakespearean plays: Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar, Antigone, and of course, The House on Mango Street. In other words, I liked stories, but I still hated to read. The fascination with stories continued throughout my junior year. I do not remember reading anything that really impacted me my junior year except The Crucible. I still liked writing though, and really wanted to do some creative writing that my English classes were not allowing me to do. I still really wanted to be a journalist because I did not know what else I could do with writing, besides be an English teacher, which I swore I would never do.

During my senior year, I took British Literature, and my creative writing class that I was longing to take. I wrote a mystery story that I was really proud of in my creative writing class called “Case of the Bloody Wedding”. I thought about maybe becoming a writer, but I felt my odds were just as good as being a singer, and a journalist as I later learned that year. My British Literature class also taught me a lot. I found so much significance in life with everything I read my senior year in high school with Beowulf, Hamlet, and Paradise Lost. I thought everything I read in that British Literature class just taught the meaning of life, and I was so fascinated with it. I decided that I wanted to teach teenagers the meaning of life and become a British Literature teacher, which is what I said I would never do.

I would decide that teaching teenagers was not the right career path for me because after working with them at Shoprite, I learned just how difficult teenagers can be. I decided that I still wanted to teach English exclusively, but with fifth graders instead of high schoolers. I substitute taught at Steinhauer Elementary School in Maple Shade and realized that I really like kids who have autonomy and can think abstractly about literature in their grade level. I had my doubts at first because I did not think children’s literature was as meaningful as literature one teaches in high school, but I took a literature of childhood class, and realized it can be just as meaningful and thought-provoking as high-school literature. My decision to teach fifth grade was solidified.

The point of this section is to show how my identity and how I see the world is shaped: through literature. Each of the stories I talk about contribute to my identity, and who I am as a person. They also make me look at how I will contribute to the world differently. They help me shape my values and shape how I interact with the world. I said that in my British Literature class, I learned to literature that taught me about the meaning of life. One of these books was Paradise Lost, which talked about seeing issues from various perspectives whether it is God’s perspective or Satan’s. When I read Looking for Alaska, I learn how to make meaning out of the world based on my experiences with the people I interact with and the literature I read to make a contribution to the world, like Miles does with the people he meets, his fascination with last words, and his desire for adventure, or “The Great Perhaps”. All of this will help him make his contribution to the world.

Bildungsroman

Both books are examples of bildungsroman, or a novel about a character’s coming of age. I will be teaching fifth graders, who are approaching adolescence. Furthermore, they are learning different aspects of the world in which they have never been exposed to before inside and outside of the classroom. In other words, not only will content get harder in all four of the main subject areas, they will start to experience harsh realities of the world that they have never been exposed to before. Maybe these realities will not be as harsh as the ones Miles and Esperanza experienced, but they can have experiences that may seem different from early childhood, like growing apart from a friend. As a teacher, it is important to help these students through these difficult obstacles and help them realize that these obstacles are learning experiences, and will contribute to his or her identity. Furthermore, it will help them realize how they will contribute to the world as well.