“Developing Global Citizens- Connecting Teenagers” Katherine T. Smith, PhD

“If the children and youth of a nation are afforded opportunity to develop their capacities to the fullest, if they are given the chance to understand the world and to change it, then the prospects for the future are bright. In contrast, a society which neglects its children, however well it may function in other regards, risks eventual disorganization and demise.” Urie Brofenbrenner  Two Worlds of Childhood: US and USSR,  1973 intro.

“… . .  .This is the only way that our world can survive because our children are the only hope for the future.” Mother Teresa

It is one of the many reasons we try to do better, learn from our mistakes, and give the next generation more opportunities then we had.  We also try to teach our children to become contributing adults one day.  Many adults have given of themselves in this endeavor.  Parents, teachers, ministers, employers, coaches etc. believe in the next generation and what they can bring to the world. We believe that, too, at The Peace Brokers, Inc.  We also believe in the importance of what the next generation, the teenagers, can learn about themselves and each other as they prepare for adulthood. Positive growth does not happen in a vacuum. We see the healthy development of the adult self as necessarily involving a growing sense in the teenage years of the interconnectedness with one another.  And developing this sense is central to the work The Peace Brokers does with teens. And, as it happens, The Peace Brokers inc. are doing it at an interesting developmental phase in the life of the teenager.

Erik Erikson, a developmental psychologist, claimed that one of the tasks for teenagers was to discover who they were as members of a wider society (now the world) as separate from their families of origin.  In that, they needed to establish a philosophy of life, ideally based on real experiences.In these complex times, however, it is difficult to know how best to support that discovery of self when we consider society’s expectations of the younger generation and the consuming nature of what they confront on a daily basis.

Westernized teenagers, who are affluent enough, often seem consumed by the demands of academic and extracurricular activities and expectations of individual achievement. Their schedules are often overbooked, their stress levels can be high, and they seem regularly pointed in the direction of their next potential success.  These efforts are happening in a familial world in which either both parents are working more than 40-hour weeks or there is a single parent responsible for needs of an entire family.  Meanwhile, in the larger context, communities and families seem more fragmented than ever before. Despite its importance, people can become too busy to connect, to get involved, or to see past the demands of their current daily schedule.
Combine this with a rate of exposure for western teenagers these days. 

Everything seems to be happening earlier and earlier for teens - from the arrival of puberty, to exposure to violence and tragedy, to teen pregnancy, to experimentation with sex, drugs, and alcohol, to a kind of unwitting isolation thanks to the allure of the internet and the illusion of true connection on venues such as Face Book or other internet chat rooms. It’s a challenging equation for teenagers; pace, demand for achievement, and unwitting isolation.

There are other teenagers in the world who do not enjoy the benefits of affluence, education, medical attention, family and community support, or even physical safety.  Their lives are consumed in a very different way: their fundamental need is for physical survival.  Depending on what their fundamental need is for survival that need will be the focus of their attention and energy. Each day is consumed in providing the necessities – or coping with the lack thereof.  The demands of such a context will have far reaching consequences on teenagers living in such circumstances.  Discovering who they are in the wider society will also be affected, but for very different reasons.

Despite the contextual demands at either end of the socio –economic spectrum, these teens will develop and must.  And how they develop is becoming increasingly more important.  All of us, now as global citizens, should be considering who our next global adult citizens will be.  How we assist teenagers these days to effectively navigate this stage is quite a challenge.  As it is now, at the more affluent end of the spectrum, the teens are called “to be all they can be,” to be achievement oriented, to be the best. At the other end of the spectrum, these teens must give most of their life energy to the task of survival.  In the final analysis both are self-absorbing positions, though in very different ways. If the hope of our future is overly occupied elsewhere and is not provided enough opportunity to experience who they are in wider, now global society, it becomes worrisome for us all. I think we can, and we must, do better than that.

As a consulting psychologist to the Peace Brokers Youth Summits, I have noticed some important experiences and learnings that have occurred among the teenagers. These experiences were not necessarily overtly programmed in, but could be seen as the possibilities that naturally open when you bring teenagers together from different parts of the world and ask them to work together for a common goal.  As it happened, these learnings turned out to be instrumental in supporting several of the goals within the mission of the Peace Brokers as well as deepening the developmental process of the teenagers.

I would like to share some of these experiences anecdotally and then highlight how these experiences add in positive ways to this adolescent developmental stage and contribute to the growth of the next generation of global citizens.  That is, that in experiences such as the ones that were shared in the Youth Summits, the teens are given a window of opportunity to grow both in the definition of who they are and what they want to accomplish (“make a difference in the world”), AND   that definition of who they are is fundamentally impacted and shaped by their contact and connection with the “other”. Or said in another way, the self, the achieving “I” cannot stand alone without a fundamental connection and awareness and, at times, primary attention given to the needs of the “other.” Without an Other, there is no One.

A few brief anecdotes.

Learning to truly listen, share in the pain of the other, and respond from that place.
There were several obvious examples of overt suffering in the course of the summit for the benefit of the youth who had lived through the tsunami.  In every instance, the teens stood close by, bore witness or stepped up to offer assistance, comfort, or reassurance to the teen who was in pain.  When it came time to design projects for the assistance to teenagers in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, the youths who had lived through the disaster were the voice of the needs while the others were rapt listeners and held themselves to plans that truly met the needs they heard.  They learned to listen, to respond, to share with hearts in pain, and to begin to make a difference.

Learning the importance of being known, accepted, and befriended
In Istanbul, one of the project groups focused on a teen hotel that was to be closed by the city.  This teen hotel housed street youth and provided minimal services.  The project group was invited to visit the hotel so they could meet more of the residents and hear more firsthand accounts of what was needed.  The services and conditions were quite limited.  Again, it was striking how closely the teenagers listened to the stories of the street youth and to what they needed.  A number of the Turkish participants had their stereotypes challenged and commitments were made to bring their new perspectives home and to their schools and communities.  One of the most poignant moments in the discussion at the youth hotel was when the street youth were asked whether they would rather have more money for food and electricity or to have more friends in the community and have the prejudice against them disappear. They chose the latter.

Learning about impoverishment and abundance in their own lives and communities
In Finland, the teens were challenged to look at poverty and prosperity and projects that would support moving to prosperity for teens in impoverished communities.   This opened a powerful discussion of what poverty actually  was in the broadest sense and whether it was solely financially defined.  They also explored what abundance actually meant, and where they were in their own lives with a personal sense of poverty and prosperity.  Personal awareness was the greatest outcome of this summit.

Learning the importance of accepting and honoring differences and experiencing the costs of disconnection through assumptions
In the USA, Learning from the Indigenous Populations –one project group struggled a great deal with how to help teens in indigenous communities.  The center of the frustration seemed to focus on feeling the indigenous teens were not open with what was needed in their communities.  As time went on, tension mounted, and an impasse was reached.  Finally, through a challenging exercise exploring nonverbal communication, the group came to realize that different people communicated in different ways, different cultures supported different degrees of sharing, and talk and quiet were responded to differently.  The group somehow had to find a way to accept their differences in communication, and that silence had different meanings, and that respect and honor of different ways were very important.

So, across these four summits, these teens learned with their hearts about pain and how to listen to one another.  They learned that sometimes others would rather be known for who they are and loved rather than be warm or have electricity.  They learned about different kinds of impoverishment and abundance, they learned not to make assumptions about communication styles that were different.  They learned they wanted to make a difference in the world and that they could.  They learned that people very different from themselves were often very similar.  They learned that sometimes someone else’s needs were greater than their own.  They learned they were part of a much bigger world – in a real way – and it took courage to really enter in. And all of them really wanted to.

Do we think these are important developmental challenges at this stage? Yes.  Does it enrich the process of discovery for a teenager in finding his or her place in the larger world?  We think so.  Might it be a move away from self-absorption?  We hope so.  Are these lessons ones we would want the next generation of global citizens to possess? Yes.

Why?  Because many adults don’t ever get there.  And the world has suffered because of it. 
Also, the teenagers are thrilled by this growth in themselves.  And we are thrilled by the hope for the future.