Like renowned painting, I am by New Zealand’s Colin McCahon… its unapologetic raw and owns up to who he is, this is who he is! The question faced by many adolescents is who am I, what will I do when I finish school, students are faced with conflict into self discovery whether with gender, sexuality, personality its all their swarming among students, so many questions, how will we adolescents ever find the right answer. I love Colin McCahons painting as it tells viewers I am…
You may not like it but I am not going to apologise for who I am, accept me for who I am, appreciate me, I don’t care if you like it or not I am going to keep doing me! It depends largely on how he views himself, you may not understand what his painting symbolises, it may be a bunch of random brush strokes, you may think you too can do something like this. He does not care what you think, this is him… I am this painting…
I think this can be strongly related to the discussion of identity. We all come with an identity built from our heritage, culture, beliefs, family and social along with political ideology. Identity from Tatum (2000) is based on what the world around us says we are. But to McCahon he doesn’t care, he is who he is. Not what the world tells him to be.
Tatum (2000), “Who am I now?” “Who was I before?” “Who will I become?” The answers to these questions will influence choices about who one’s romantic partners will be, what type of work one will do, where one will live, and what belief system one will embrace. Choices made in adolescence ripple throughout the lifespan.”
This puts a lot of pressure on adolescents to figure themselves out and become a certain way. Who we become is not necessarily the most important aspect in life whats important is that we accept ourselves for who we are. Be comfortable in our own skin and our own being. Life is to short to worry about what the next person thinks of us, accept your flaws, be comfortable in your own skin. You are beautiful in all your imperfections like Colin McCahon I am…. Me, life, amazing…
I am beautiful.
Tatum, B. D. (2000). The complexity of identity: “Who am I?.” In Adams, M., Blumenfeld, W. J., Hackman, H. W., Zuniga, X., Peters, M. L. (Eds.), Readings for diversity and social justice: An anthology on racism, sexism, anti-semitism, heterosexism, classism and ableism (pp. 9-14). New York: Routledge.
Diary of the beginner teacher... 
Too true beginner teacher, more than ever, adolescents are shaped by the environment around them and finding self identity is not an exact science. I trace back to my adolescent times and apart from my peers, family and school and a bit of social access through the internet, my self discovery was very limited in terms of what shaped me, compared to the smorgaboard of different social media platforms, that exist today, which allow access to various social identites. This can be a blessing or a curse, depending which way you look at it. According to Erik Erickson stages of development theory , is by having access to various social identities, are more adolescents likely to stay in the role confusion part of their development or is it the case, that with lots more options they will be more comfortable in their self identity as they have had various avenues to explore.
To expand even further, what part are teachers and schools playing towards this self discovery of ‘who am i’. Schools talk about creating good people, teaching life skills and getting students to learn about who they are, but are we not also the reason why students struggle to find out who they really are?.
I look at your reference to Colin McCahon, who dropped out of school as they weren’t challenging him enough and restricting his artist ambition. He became an influential artist driven my his own self identity, if he gone through the rigors of academic studies, would he have lost that identity and followed the path derived by academic success.
LikeLike