| New theories emerging in the sciences, embodied by complexity theory, chaos theory, nonlinear dynamics, and "new biology" necessitate a new cultural view of adolescence and education. This thesis shows that adolescence, as a distinct developmental stage, emerged around the turn of the century as a result of the post-civil war shift from an agrarian culture to a predominantly urban, labor-based, and industrial culture. The secondary schools which educate adolescents are still based on the paradigms which dominated education during the emergence of adolescence. Currently, schools educate individuals to use linear-reductionist thought to find a place in a labor-based economy. Using the new paradigms, education would become a quest to discover one's place in, and unique contribution to, an inter-connected, global community. This task requires an education built on connection with self, dynamic relationship with one's environment, and the unfolding of one's potential in a self-regulating, self-organizing process. |
