Teacher’s educational role in the adolescent student’s process of identity development

Abstract

For the adolescent student the scholastic experience becomes meaningful when it takes care of his developmental needs. In each personal experience, included the scholastic one, the adolescent seeks to fulfil his developmental tasks and consequently to define his identity profile. In this contest, the school is in charge of offering proper didactic methods as to meet the developmental needs of the person. Therefore, besides the didactic activity
aimed to the teaching of disciplines, the teacher has to give an educational value to his actions. The meaningful learning model is here proposed as a new tool to interpret the needs of teaching and it is presented as an intervention aimed for the development perspective of the person. E. Morin (2000, 2001) believes that the school, within a complex society, should address issues such as the nature of human identity, the rise of a planetary citizenship
and the promotion of a new concept of knowledge.