On November 18, Larry Nelson, professor in the School of Family Life and recipient of the 2020 General Education Professorship, presented at the GE Inspiring Teaching Workshop on understanding the developmental context for educating the whole person. Nelson made the point that we can't separate academic learning from the rest of the person.
The developmental context of students today is much different than previous generations. The biggest reason is an increase in the number of years students take to transition into adult roles. The transition takes longer, in part, because high-paying careers require an education that costs more and takes more time. Furthermore, people are waiting to get married at an older age. In 2016, the median age of first marriages in the U.S. increased to 28 years old for females and 30 years old for males.
Students also do not view themselves as adults yet, nor do their parents, another reason for the label emerging adults. A factor for delaying marriage is emerging adults do not see the benefit of marriage. They would rather spend their twenties focused on a "now-or-never" approach to life.
Researchers now know the brain does not fully develop until a person is in their mid-twenties. As a result, emerging adults have poor planning skills and are more likely to prognosticate; have poor self-control; experience powerful feelings of passion, pleasure, and emotion; and encounter skewed processes of experience. Combining these factors with full autonomy and control over their structure can cause the perfect storm for substance abuse, metals illness, self-harm, etc. The highest cause of death for emerging adults are accidents and suicides.
By understanding the development context of emerging adults, Nelson feels universities have the opportunity to provide structure for students. "If we feel our only responsibility is to teach students content to prepare for a job and, thereby, not acknowledge the perfect storm of challenges they are facing then we set them up to fail," said Nelson.
Watch the workshop to learn how you can help students experience life-long success.