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p When pondering about my pupils after working hours I often used to think to myself that adolescence is like a second birth. The first time a living being is brought forth, and the second time a citizen, an active, thinking individual, who is aware not merely of the world around him but also of himself. When he first enters the world man announces himself with a cry: here I am, take care of me, look after me, I am helpless, don’t forget about me for a moment, shield me, sit with bated breath at my cradle. When born a second time man addresses the world in quite different terms: do not protect me, do not follow me or watch my every step, do not wrap me in the nappies of supervision or mistrust, never remind me of my cradle. I am an independent person. I do not want to be led by the hand. Before me there stands a high mountain. It is the goal of my 320 life: I behold it, think about it, wish to reach it, and I am going to climb that peak on my own.... I need the support of an older friend. I shall reach the summit, if I lean on the shoulder of a strong and wise man. Yet I am afraid or ashamed to say this. I want you all to think that I can reach the summit on my own, relying on my own resources. That is what a young teenager would say if he were able to put into words what was of immediate concern to him, and—still more important—if he wanted to talk about all that openly. (12, 65)

p Before I started work with my pupils of this age group I had heard a great deal about the difficulties of work with such classes. I had been told that it was easy to work with young children, while as soon as children reach their teens they change beyond recognition. I was warned that their kindness, sensitivity and shyness disappear and are replaced by coarse abruptness and indifference. Later I was to realise how wrong those words were. Good impulses are only absent in those teenagers who never knew them, if their teachers in primary classes had gone by the principle that children are endowed or not as the case may be with kindness by Nature. If a child is not encouraged from an early age to love books, if reading has not become an emotional need that will last throughout his life, then a teenager will be empty-headed and bad characteristics will come to light, that seem to spring from nowhere. (10, 175)

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p While the world of things—their essence, their causal links and dependences—provide the main source of a child’s intellectual and emotional experience in his early years, in adolescence it is the world of ideas which opens up before him. To fathers and mothers it seems strange, incomprehensible, even hurtful that their son as it were forgets the cradle, from which he first glimpsed the sun and sky, and forgets the mother’s breast at which he sucked. Yet this shift of interest and preoccupation reflects the complex contradictory process at work in the teenager’s mind; against the broad background of social life, family, home, cradle and mother’s love suddenly appear to the teenager as petty and insignificant. Even his own “sins”—violations of accepted norms of behaviour—appear to him as unimportant in comparison to world problems.

p Teenagers begin to philosophise—to think in terms of broad socio-political and moral concepts. Everything going on in the world is of immediate concern to him as an individual. Do not let this take you by surprise, teachers of such pupils: profound interest in other people is the distinctive characteristic of young people at this period. (12, 172)

p It is very important to the teenager that the world he embraces in his mind should not be a narrow sheltered one or limited to his home. The further an adolescent’s view of the world reaches, the more ideas and emotions are aroused in him by things distant which he does 322 not come into contact with in his everyday life, the more subtle, considerate and sensitive will be his socially committed view of his village, his work, his friends, relatives and dear ones, and lastly of himself. If a teenager is moved by something happening in the foothills of the Pamirs, he will also take to heart what is happening in his native village. (12, 211)

p Adolescence is remarkable for the fact that the individual not only discovers his fellowmen (this small children do as well), but also goes out in search of them. (12, 215)

p Teenagers experience the need to share with their fellows not only impressions of what they have seen (something small children like to do as well), but also ideas born of generalisations and conclusions they have reached. While small children communicate with each other mainly in the course of games and work, and tell each other mainly about fairy stories and vivid adventures from books they have read, an important place in contacts between teenagers is gradually occupied by exchanges of ideas that incorporate generalisations and definitions. (6, 130)

p Many pupils of this age group develop the habit of arguing at every opportunity, whenever they glimpse a chance of exercising their powers of reason. There is nothing regrettable about this; efforts to develop teenagers’ speech habits should consist in directing their thought 323 processes along correct channels, to improve immature, imperfect speech of the adolescent and achieve a correctly patterned expression of ideas. (6, 131)

p I often went out of my way to maintain an atmosphere of debate in my class.... This atmosphere builds up thanks to the fact that the pupils, while pondering over and analysing facts, as it were, step back from the latter and catch sight of the central problem.. . . Teenage pupils find it interesting to examine contradictions and work out their own viewpoint. Theirs is not a detached approach to knowledge as something merely to be assimilated, they are fighters with a distinct goal in view. I saw my role of the teacher to present factual material with all its controversial implications, to encourage debate. Controversial discussion brings emotional enrichment to children’s thought processes: teenagers take definite interest in the underlying connections between facts.. .. Events from the distant past are apprehended and re-lived by them as if they related to the present; characters from literature come to represent for them like-minded friends or ideological opponents. (72, 204)

p The ability to form his own opinion of everything he sees around him, particularly of other people, is a stage in the teenager’s mental development which to a large extent determines his new ideas, experiences, emotions and preoccupations, that may well appear unexpected 324 to teachers or parents. While reading a novel a teenager may encounter thoughts on life and death which will suddenly thrust upon him the idea, that he too has to die. This thought often gives rise to confusion and in many cases even mental suffering. I knew a boy who upon this realisation experienced a severe nervous trauma. For several days he just sat in the classroom completely indifferent to everything around him. It seemed strange and incomprehensible to him that the people around him had forgotten that they would die; it bewildered him to see that they were able to go peacefully about their work, to enjoy themselves and pay heed to insignificant everyday affairs. (12, 69)

p Teenage pupils start to take particularly keen interest in passages from works of fiction treating emotional and intellectual contact between individuals, questions of devotion and loyalty. This is the age when young people start making notes, collecting extracts, expressions and definitions from literature, which appear to them particularly apt or expressive. An indication of the important role of mental and emotional activity in the lives of teenagers is the habit of keeping diaries. Thoughts, ideas and convictions are noted down not to be memorised, or for future use, but merely as a means of affirming the truth and correctness of their ideas. (6, 126)

p It is quite wrong to “feed” teenagers with childish maxims such as admonitions not to be 325 late for lessons, carefully to do all their homework, etc. There are important duties for a schoolchild, but no foundation for a wealth of ideas and no source of inspiration; these duties do not provide sufficiently wide scope for teenagers to try out their new-found strength and to overcome difficulties and finally to work out their convictions. For convictions to take shape, such pupils require rich food for thought. If a boy or girl in their teens adopts an irresponsible attitude to study, this means that there is no spark of inspiration in his or her life which might add colour to everyday tasks, there is no involvement in real “grown-up” affairs. (12, 225)

p To use Belinsky’s idea, it is precisely at this period that young people should "investigate and interrogate the past" so that it might help them to understand the present and look into the future. Education with a historical perspective is a vital step on the path to moral selfeducation. At no other stage does an individual experience so deeply his sense of duty to his Homeland, as at the time when he ponders over his country’s destiny and in his own thoughts retreads the path his people has followed and comes to sense himself as part of that people. (12, 212)

p During their teens I set my charges to collecting material on the participation in the Great Patriotic War by men from their village. The boys and girls brought priceless 326 treasures to school from their homes—yellowed photographs of heroes, their neighbours or relatives. They made large portraits of the heroes and placed them in a special memorial room.... (12, 214)

p A particularly deep impression was made on these teenage pupils by stories in which ideas assumed living form as it were: such themes as man and society, freedom and oppression, happiness and sorrow, social progress and reaction. (12, 173)

p When trying to convey moral and political ideals in all their grandeur I was always afraid lest these pupils might read reproach between the lines of my stories to the effect that real people act like this while their behaviour was of a quite different order... . Even the slightest hint in this direction brings intellectual activity, that is essential to the formations of ideals, to an abrupt halt: young hearts would be filled with a lack of confidence in their own capacity, hesitation, a sense of their own futility and the fruitlessness of their efforts directed towards self-education and the inaccessibility of ideal goals. Yet teenagers are never prepared to reconcile themselves to the idea of their own insignificance. Instead they are filled with a sense of protest, inner protest that fills their whole being. They cease to believe in what you tell them, the great and noble ideals can be pulled down from their heroic pedestal. It is here that the seeds of cynicism lie. Intellectual 327 and moral enrichment is impossible for pupils robbed of a sense of their own dignity. A vivid picture of an ideal life, of the inspiration to be drawn from moral exploits, should not blind the teenager but on the contrary light up the path he needs to follow, bring into relief what is good and what is regrettable in his own feelings and ideas. Precisely this is what needs to be done—lighting up the path to a young heart’s ideal, and turning such a heart "inside out" should be avoided at all costs. (12, 203)

p One of the main reasons for problems in the education of pupils in their teens stems from the fact that there is no way of disguising efforts to train and mould character, for by this age boys and girls do not like to feel that they are being deliberately "brought up”. (11, 8)

p When they sense disrespect for their personal dignity on the part of their elders teenagers often react with stubborn or coarse behaviour. Nothing could be worse than efforts to break such obstinacy, to quell such insubordination. Such efforts offend, and even embitter adolescents and give rise to situations where they deliberately start to act in defiance of the reasonable demand of discipline. Teenagers resent particularly bitterly constant reminders from their parents or teachers of the weaknesses in their character of which they are either to some extent aware, or are even trying to combat. Deliberate emphasis of these shortcomings and in particular ironic treatment of the same cause 328 teenagers deep regret and sometimes even despair. On the other hand if these weaknesses are regarded with tolerance teenagers will themselves mobilise their inner resources in order to eradicate these negative traits from their character. (6, 132)

p Teenagers do not accept unquestioningly all they are told by teachers or parents, as do small children; they do not accept all they hear without a murmur. Indeed, they seem deliberately to seek for arguments which refute what they are told.. .. An important condition for the positive evolution of the adolescent’s critical spirit is not only satisfaction but also all manner of encouragement for his inquisitiveness and thirst for knowledge___(6, 119-20)

p A sign of teenagers’ developing mental capacities is their need for decisive final answers to questions and for exhaustive proofs that do not admit of ambiguity.

p This need comes particularly clearly to the fore in relation to questions bearing on causal relationships in social affairs: when confronted by incomplete ideas such pupils tend to suspect deliberate attempts to conceal the truth from them and this to some extent explains their wariness, the critical spirit in which they sometimes react to explanations of subjects of deep concern to them. (6, 122)

p A feature of the teenager’s intellectual development is expressed in the fact that he 329 cannot reconcile himself with any vagueness or incompleteness in evaluations of various phenomena. He needs comprehensive and explicit definitions. This explains why teenagers’ own opinions are distinguished by extreme explicitness, which should not be interpreted as an expression of exaggerated self-confidence. On the contrary, through his categorical opinions a teenager often tries to conceal his doubts, his lack of confidence; his emotional activity sometimes serves to compensate for intellectual incertainty. Categorical expressions provide the teenager with an instrument for asserting the correctness of his ideas. (6, 123)

p Certain teachers hold that teenagers are as a rule unwilling to admit their errors or to try and correct their mistakes, yet this is a superficial impression. Pupils are only trying to show that they are standing by their principles. Meanwhile in actual fact their minds are hard at work searching for correct answers. Careful observation of teenagers has shown that they take their mistakes very much to heart and in view of the fact that at this age they have a heightened sense of their own dignity it would be wrong to demand from them sober, thoughtful criticism of their own opinions.

p Through his mental activity the teenager endeavours not merely to show what he is thinking and what kind of opinions he has, but—and this is particularly important—he is also trying to convince himself of the correctness of his opinions.... This incidentally also serves to 330 explain the growing need experienced by pupils of this age to find complete correspondence between words and deeds (a need which can often lead them to make mistakes), and for straightforward directness of arguments, bordering on abruptness. (6, 123)

p The following contradictions reveal particularly clearly the nature of the intellectual and emotional experience of teenage boys and girls and the way in which their moral self-assertion takes place: a deep urge to make resolute efforts towards self-education side by side with a mistrustful attitude to concrete techniques of selfeducation recommended by teachers; impressionable sensitivity to moral assessments of their own character by the collective and the urge to appear indifferent to such assessments and to act without reference to others’ advice; aspirations after ideals and high principles in important matters (duty towards one’s country and a spirit of sacrifice) and unprincipled behaviour in relation to trivial matters (such as covering up a friend who has committed a misdemeanour); respect for the power and potential of science, reason and skill side by side with a predilection for crafty questions aimed at refuting long established truths, propositions and laws of science; the urge to analyse each fact, phenomenon, event, and a fear of hasty conclusions side by side with a youthful bent for superficial generalisations from isolated facts, particularly with regard to social relations 331 and emotional problems; romantic urges, dreams, visions of lofty goals side by side with a definitely practical, down-to-earth, almost prosaic preoccupation with detail; the urge to appear grown-up, deliberate emphasis of those aspects in one’s behaviour modelled on adults side by side with the first pangs of nostalgia in the emotional key of reminiscences linked with childhood and the realisation of the fact that childhood is past and the regret experienced as a result of that realisation; profound faith in the good inherent in man side by side with a tendency to exaggerate certain negative characteristics in close friends and relatives; inquisitiveness, thoughtfulness, a capacity for concentrated brainwork side by side with absentmindedness, disorderliness, tolerance for poorly organised things and disorder; aspiration after moral ideals and unconditional emulation of idealised heroes in every respect, even in insignificant details, side by side with a fear of appearing dependent on others and a view of all imitation as a sign of moral weakness; contempt for rote-learning side by side with an urge to remember word for word meaningful expressions and sayings; marked seriousness side by side with a boundless capacity for merriment; a sense of pride in one’s intellectual abilities or even exaggerated view of the latter side by side wth efforts at self-debasement and efforts to convince themselves that they know absolutely nothing, etc.; bravery, contempt of danger side by side with shyness, awkwardness, particularly in situations where activity is 332 perforce of an exclusively intellectual or emotional character; exaggerated irritability at times when self-control is required, side by side with deliberate restraint at times when intellectual and moral assessments can be conveyed most vividly of all through the expression of profound feeling; trustfulness side by side with wariness; sincerity, frankness, profound emotional and intellectual communication with each other, side by side with reserve and inhibitions in relations with those dearest of all, with fathers and mothers; gentle tenderness side by side with cold curtness or artificially stern words; deliberate and discriminating interest in a specific branch of knowledge and type of work activity side by side with an urge to know everything and reproach themselves with ignorance; sensitivity, responsiveness and uncompromising rejection of callous heartlessness, side by side with a fear of being too open in their compassion and sympathy (particularly in boys), so as not to be thought “soft”; optimism, zest for life and intolerant attitudes towards dejection, side by side with a strange feeling of satisfaction derived from a gentle, almost lyrical variety _ of melancholy (which often finds expression in diaries); the urge to decide their future while still at school, side by side with a constant expectation of something new and unknown; an awareness of their strength and potential side by side with an urge to engage in such activities as are outside their capacities; fortitude side by side with a tendency to exaggerate personal setbacks and sorrow.

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p I dwelt in detail on these contradictions because an understanding of the latter is very important if a teacher is to achieve a considerate, sensitive approach to boys and girls. The teachers’ task also involves explaining to teenage boys and girls the contradictory natures of their motives and desires. If we remember that two contradictory motives or urges can be in equal measure worthwhile and blameworthy (depending upon the specific conditions) it becomes clear what an important part teenagers’ awareness of the moral implications of their motives plays as their moral character assumes definite shape. This awareness both acts as a stimulus for activity and a source of restraint. (6, 172-74)

p Young people have the feeling that to do or not do some specific act is almost tantamount to merely wanting or not wanting to do it. This is why young people often behave not as they ought to but as the spirit moves them. They are already aware of the link between acts and man’s efforts of will, but they are unable as yet to come to a critical assessment of their own desires.

p This inability finds expression in what adults refer to as teenagers’ “big-headedness”. Manifestations of this “big-headedness” or even unreasonable obstinacy are often curiously combined with good intentions to manifest real strength of will. Great concern should be shown to these manifestations and intentions of the teenagers.

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p It is important to show understanding for the attempts made by adolescents, sometimes very inept or almost funny, from an adult point of view, to assert their will. Teenagers do not embark immediately on a task or project, as is the case with young pupils whom a teacher has succeeded in motivating. However much the activity before them might seem inspiring they like to think about whether or not it is worth doing what the teacher is calling upon them to do; at first glance it might even appear sometimes that they are showing unwillingness to work (sometimes this impression stems from their ironic remarks about their particular role in the project ahead). Some teachers lose control of themselves when pupils behave in this way, and they are convinced that the teenagers are merely putting their patience to the test. In actual fact, however, this hesitation betrays no hard feeling towards the teacher or the work they are about to embark on. Pupils in this age group merely derive pleasure from contemplation of the link between the work in hand and their volition, their efforts of will. (6, 109)

p Particular care is required of teachers during the final period of children’s school careers, for children in their late teens, a time of a deeply pondered attitude to the surrounding world, to their own life and activity, a time coloured by a sense of the fullness of life and the flowering of their physical and intellectual innate qualities, and an awareness of the vistas of a rich, full-blooded and meaningful life opening up 335 before them, a time when noble emotions of love and devotion are experienced together with dreams and plans for the future....

p The all-important aspect of intellectual and emotional development at this period is a young person’s world outlook, his deliberate endeavour to lend his acts and his general behaviour motivation based on a clearly defined view of the world. (6, 38)

p The children in the last classes at school are of an age when their moral and intellectual potential is assuming definite shape. They show a predilection then to indulge in profound analysis of facts and draw general conclusions from the latter. An offshoot of that predilection is incidentally mistrust and frequent objections to what they hear and are told. It is difficult to judge from the facial expressions and outward behaviour of such young adults what they are really thinking, what is really going on in their minds. This characteristic of school-leavers places special demands on the teacher as he presents these pupils with material. It is important to select material for such pupils that provides maximum scope for analysis,, deliberation, argument and debate.... Boys and girls at this stage are not carried away and inspired by heroic exploits in such a straightforward way as are small children and pupils in their early teens. They are attempting in their mind’s eye to put themselves in the place of the heroes the teacher is telling them about. . . . When speaking of heroes to pupils in the senior 336 classes the teacher should always bear in mind that the pupil is not only thinking about the hero, but about himself as well. (3, 43)

p While in material for young pupils facts should speak for themselves, for those in senior classes it is essential that it should make a direct appeal to their minds and powers of analysis. Those engaged in practical teaching are profoundly mistaken when they presume that pupils in the senior classes adopt a contemptuous attitude towards so-called "general statements". Pupils of this age group scorn empty words, but intelligent words are of profound interest for them___(3, 44)

p Young people in their late teens adopt a new approach to categorical judgements: these start to give way more and more to hypothetical propositions (loosely lumped together by adults under the heading of “philosophising”) and demonstrability of this or that hypothesis is judged according to the difficult choices between contradictory ideas to be made as it is being substantiated. In practice this new approach finds expression in the following interesting pattern: the more effort involved in demonstrating a particular truth the more profound a pupil’s belief in it. (6, 174)

Boys and girls in their late teens subject to particularly profound analysis questions linked with social relations and the individual’s inner world.... Their attention is captured by 337 questions such as the objective nature of historical events and the role of the individual in history; the correlation between the personal and the social, between rights and duties; the link between the concepts of happiness and duty, discipline and freedom; man’s endeavour to reach a closer understanding of himself. (6, 175)