After the first tutoring session, I gave myself some time to specify stakeholders and narrow down my changes in a more tangible way. I always knew I preferred abstract expressions because I think it’s beautiful to leave so much room for interpretation in everything. But when writing, I find myself off in the distance, describing something so abstractly. I need to be more articulate and I need to figure out a way to describe it accurately while still maintaining the abstract beauty I want.
Self-awareness for healthy identity formation for children
I’d like to see people value the importance of self-awareness for healthy identity formation in children, especially in today’s digital world. The traditional education system’s focus on academic achievement has often overlooked children’s emotional and social development, which requires the transformation of the education system – integrating self-awareness and emotional intelligence programmes into the curriculum from the earliest stages of education.
Every stage of life is essential, but I think it’s critical for children to find healthy ways to discover who they are before the age of twelve, when their self-identity is established. The world in which children and adolescents now live is new in many ways; they live in a world that is entirely different from what older generations experienced growing up. They live in a world in which they are actively connected to an ever-mutating digital realm, and though the internet’s innovations may seem attractive, it poses a number of threats both to children’s physical safety and their sense of self. With this in mind, I started to reflect on whether we had given up on trying to understand our children, or guide them as they try to navigate a reality so different from our own.
With the development of digital media, children are facing new challenges that require a different kind of self-awareness education. Children are exposed to smartphones and digital devices from an early age, making them vulnerable to information overload, quick judgment without critical thinking, and addiction. Studies have shown that these digital natives have different ways of communicating amongst themselves, perceptions of themselves in relation to the world, and even brain structures, compared to older generations.
To respond to these challenges, we need to focus on self-awareness education that teaches children how to use digital media positively and develop healthy self-awareness.
These proposed changes will involve the challenge of working with various stakeholders and implementing new programmes within the education system. We need to conduct further background research on: the impact of both digital literacy and self-awareness education, the people and organisations involved in the success of educational processes (parents, teachers, governments) and how everyone will be affected by the changes. As it stands, we are responsible for under-preparing our children for a new world, which they face with very few safety instructions.
By embracing these changes and implementing self-awareness education programmes, including digital media literacy, we can equip children with the skills they need to navigate their lives independently with self-efficacy. This will lead to a more holistic education system that focuses on the child’s overall development, which will positively impact their lives and society as a whole. We need to start taking small steps towards ensuring that our children don’t get trapped in a mirror maze of small screens, unable to get out, or grow up convinced that the desires of others are what they want, watching and imitating before finding out who they are.
This is similar to the way adults used to look up to mass media stars in the past, but they were able to keep their distance by remaining content consumers and audiences. However, the participatory nature of the current digital culture has created an environment where young people can exist as both consumers and producers. They often struggle to replicate the edited temporariness of the digital world in their real lives. While on the outside, it may look like harmless star-struck fandom and adults may think to themselves “we’ve all been there, and grew out of it”, ultimately older generations underestimate the possible threats of young people’s current environment.
Finally, while it is essential to recognise the importance of self-awareness education in the digital age and strive for its successful implementation, it is also vital to consider the possibility that the concept of health we have been conditioned to accept needs to change. We need to remain open to the possibility that the definition of a healthy mind and being may evolve over time.