From childhood to adolescence. Training educators for an unpredictable age group

Abstract

Early adolescence is a particularly complex stage of life where the building of personal
identity is concerned, although its educational needs can tend sometimes to be
underestimated. Contemporary pedagogy must therefore focus attention on the real
needs of early adolescents, during a period when the stages in the course of human
life seem disrupted and the very sense of growing up is hard to grasp. This means
that there is a need for educators – not only in the family and in schools, but in the
non-formal system too – having the responsibility and skill to take up the educational
mission of accompanying early adolescents on their journey through what should
be a flourishing life.