THE AWAKENING OF YOUNG ADULTS
INTRODUCTION
By Issa Muvunangoma “He who does not know one thing knows another.” —African proverb
A
phrase that practically tells us that no one can know everything but everyone knows something. As our adolescents experience their maturity transition from adolescence to adulthood, they face some hardships and enlightenment, which comes with rising and falling, but this transition is not foreign for them, they’ve done this before —as just an infant when they were learning how to walk, holding their parents’ hands tight like a clinging vine to a tree. Parents stayed close to them, held them up, and let go when they needed to. For they knew they wouldn’t learn to walk if they didn’t let them fall. The aforementioned transition works the same way in twelfth Grade, and the temptation to hold on tight to our young adults’ students and control the path that lies ahead of them is bigger and more fierce than ever. Except our response to helping them at this stage of their lives is different. As littles, they craved a hand to help them get up when they fall but now as young adults, all they seek is someone to understand them. During the transition to adulthood, things start to veer. Parents and teachers more often than not feel their children separation and sometimes, we might miss them even when they’re sitting in front of us in the classroom, and long for the way things used to be. That’s when we feel that our relationship with them is falling to disrepair. We might wonder whether to hold on tighter or stand back. The answer is, we need to do both. We hold on to them but we give them the space they need to again, fall and rise. Throughout my past experiences working with young adults, 10
