Escaping Endless Adolescence. Why are teens growing up so slowly?

I just found an interesting Newsweek article written by Po Bronson reviewing the book Escaping Endless Adolesence. The book's authors, Dr. Joe Allen and Dr. Claudia Worrell Allen, asks the question, "Why are teens growing up so slowly?" In other words, why does it take teens today so long to mature and be ready for the world? Their answer to this question is reflected in the current education reform discussion.

Structural changes in our school system is part of the national conscious when it comes to education reform, whether it's extending the school day, extending the school year, block scheduling, starting the school day later, or any of the other ideas that have been tossed around, it's been part of the mainstream conversation. What these authors have concluded is structural change is needed and should provide real-life, hands on experience that better prepare our children and offer them options to explore their talents, creativity and maturity.

"We place kids in schools together with hundreds, sometimes thousands, of other kids typically from similar economic and cultural backgrounds. We group them all within a year or so of one another in age. We equip them with similar gadgets, expose them to the same TV shows, lessons, and sports. We ask them all to take almost the exact same courses and do the exact same work and be graded relative to one another. We give them only a handful of ways in which they can meaningfully demonstrate their competencies. And then we’re surprised they have some difficulty establishing a sense of their own individuality... We don’t give teens enough ways to take risks that are productive.”

At Urban School Foundation we're trying to provide this opportunity through entrepreneurship education. We're creating a program in which students actually start a business and run it. All proceeds from this business are then donated to the school program of their choice.

Read more about our program here.