So what does it mean to you?

Every once in a while a profession is blessed with someone who truly is leader and visionary for that profession and guides others in it to what it really means to a member of that profession. To be John Lounsbury is that very special person in the academy of education. Lounsbury, with a few other educators, started to study young adolescents as a special population almost four decades ago. Young adolescents were once misunderstood by so many and therefore not appreciated or respected as the special population they are – it was through Lounsbury’s passion that those who work with young adolescents now know how special they are.

His wisdom and passion for young adolescents opened the doors to working with and respecting them that was once dreaded.

One can experience his profound respect for-young adolescents in an online NMSA article Understanding and Appreciating the Wonder Years. In the article he reminds us that “….

Young adolescents are a wondrous group, eager, enthusiastic, curious, adventuresome, full of life, fresh, and refreshing. They are genuine and do not shine in borrowed plumes. Their honesty is often disarming. They have a sense of humor, albeit one that is sometimes a bit weird. We should celebrate this stage of endless discovery during which youth come of age. Their capacities for thinking and reflecting are unfolding. Their outward behavior may belie the seriousness of their inner thoughts, but those who work closely with these young people know of their concern for the less fortunate, the environment, and other national problems. They worry about nuclear war, HIV, family disintegration, and moral issues. Their penchant for service is expressed in such things as can-a-thons, service learning projects, and campaigns to save the whales. They seek heroes and heroines, individuals of character and conscience, ones whose examples can be emulated. This is not the time for adults to abdicate their critically important guidance role, yet this is too often what happens as adults assume that the peer group takes over.”

So my questions to you are: “What does this quote and the respect for young adolescents that Lounsbury has defined mean to you as one who chooses to work with the young adolescent population? How do you plan to respect and celebrate them and guide them and to stand with them in the present and move towards the future they deserve?”