Reflection #1: Adolescent Development and Identity
Through exploring the invention of the adolescent, we discussed the idea that there is this embedded sense of danger associated with adolescents at this liminal stage of life. In the Article “Denaturalizing Adolescence: The Politics Contemporary Representations” Nancy Lesko highlights the popular social belief that youth are “controlled by hormones and, therefore, are dangerously out of control”. She also suggests that “The application of the term culture to youth (e.g., Youth subculture or peer culture) helps create a conceptual distance between the activities and perspectives of those with culture and those with practical reason” (Lesko 154). The idea that youth culture is dangerous and devoid of practical reason reminded me of a documentary called Paradise Lost.
Paradise Lost focuses on the trial of the West Memphis Three. Damien Echols (18 years old), Jessie Misskelly (17 years old) and Jason Baldwin (16 years old) were accused of brutally murdering three young boys (pictured above) as a part of a satanic ritual. Through analysing the trials, it is made clear that these adolescent boys were targeted as suspects because of their age, their appearances and the music that they liked to listen to. We discussed in class the popular belief in the 80s that Heavy Metal music would lead to mass murder. This is clearly exemplified in the treatment of the these three young boys who were accused of murder because they listened to heavy metal music and wore black; apparently suggesting that they were involved in occult and satanic murder rituals.
I find this idea of personal identity incredibly interesting in that the way you portray yourself affects how you are perceived by society. As Erik Erikson suggests, the main task of adolescence is determining self-identity. For these young boys, their identities provided them with a death-sentence and life imprisonment. Through following the series of documentaries, their innocence is revealed, shedding light on how the misjudgement of youth can have negative consequences for everyone involved. It is important as educators to not make assumptions about a person's identity and to think deeply about how your preconceived notions may affect how you respond to students.