Does your school provide for individual differences

In addition to feeling solidly in a group, the adolescent, as we have seen, needs to feel himself emerging from the group. Not only does he need to feel that he is LIKE OTHERS. He needs to feel that he is LIKE HIMSELF; that he is himself. That he has his own identity.

He needs to discover through experience that he can be himself and differ from others and yet be accepted by others. He needs to know that because of his differences and his differings, he will not be left isolated and alone.

One of the values of group support as we have sketched it is that it provides opportunities for differences and differings at the same time that it assures group belongingness. It does this for many kinds of children in many kinds of ways.

If a particular youngster is a "brain," he can pit his brain against others' brains. If he is brawn, he can pit his brawn. If he is mechanically minded, he can work with and compete with other mechanically minded youngsters. He may choose either to merge differences according to his wants and the demands of others, or he may maintain them.

He may even leave a peer group which has served as a home and find that he can survive and function comfortably and intimately in another home group of peers. This is a kind of preview for him of what it will be like later to leave his family's home and function comfortably in a home of his own, with the sound intimacy that contains of necessity differences as well as agreements.

With his peers he can voice his differences vigorously. He can stand up for what he believes one moment and retract not too long after without loss of caste. He can argue vociferously. He can debate his own cause.

These things he can do if given the opportunities. And he needs to do them not only in unsupervised moments on the playground and in the recreation hall. He needs also to do them in the classroom where a trained person can help him manage impulses which otherwise might bewilder, confuse and hold him back.

And so, here again is a point to check as a sort of indication as to whether such opportunities exist:

In your school how are classes conducted? Are there recitations only? Or are there opportunities aplenty for alive and lively discussion?

Must a youngster sit in obedient silence and speak only when spoken to? Must he raise his hand and then give pat answers to show only that he can say back what has been told him? Must he recite only the learned phrases that the learned ones have set?

Or--

Does the hum of interchange go on in study periods? Does the back and forth of energetic conversation prevail in his classes? Does he have chances to voice his own opinions? Does he have chances to argue his cause? Chances even to argue for the sake of argument, not alone to prove facts?