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https://theconversation.com/teens-dont-know-everything-and-those-who-acknowledge-that-fact-are-more-eager-to-learn-214120>
"If you, like me, grew up in the 1980s and 1990s, you may have come across the
classic refrigerator magnet, “Teenagers, leave home now while you still know
everything.”
Perhaps you know a teen, or maybe you were a teen, like this: pop-star energy,
a little too confident in your opinions, a little too certain that no one could
know what you know. Adolescence is the period of life when people transform
from children into adults. To handle the transition successfully, people need
to shed parental dependencies and become more autonomous and independent. So it
makes sense that teens think – or at least act like – they know everything.
I’m a scholar of how people, at any stage of life, handle the fact that they do
not actually know everything.
My research has examined what happens to young people who, amid the emotional,
social and hormonal storms of adolescence, find themselves relatively willing
to acknowledge that their knowledge and perspective are actually limited. This
is an attribute scholars like me call “intellectual humility,” which describes
a person’s recognition that there are gaps in what they know and that those
gaps make their beliefs and opinions fallible.
My colleagues and I wondered whether anything was different about teens who
recognize this fallibility – who are intellectually humble – and those who
don’t. We really weren’t sure, because the answer is not obvious. On one hand,
being aware of their own ignorance and fallibility might be an asset for
teenagers by making them more teachable and open-minded, and perhaps even more
likable. On the other hand, perhaps awareness of their ignorance could be so
overwhelming that it makes them feel defeated and helpless, essentially
shooting young people in the foot before they have even gotten off the starting
line of their adult life.
We wondered whether, and to what extent, intellectual humility is beneficial
for youth and to what extent it might actually be harmful."
Via Muse.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
