Are you neutral?

Adolescents need to begin to form an identity consisting of personal values, career choice, college options, religion and political affiliations.In reaching mature identity, Marcia identified four different statuses: Identity Diffuses, Foreclosure, Moratorium, and Identity Achieved (Dolgin, 2011). Identity diffused is a time in a person’s life when they have not experiences crisis nor made any commitments (Dolgin, 2011). Foreclosure is when a person has not experienced a crisis but have made commitments, even if these are the commitments of their parents that they have adopted (Dolgin, 2011).  Moratorium is “a period of delay granted to someone who is not yet ready to make a decision or assume an obligation”, specifically adolescence when individuals are constantly questioning and rediscovering parts of their identity. (Dolgin, 2011). The final status is Identity Achieved when a person has resolved identity crises through evaluation of choices and alternatives, and has made their own decisions (Dolgin, 2011). 

As teachers, it is important for us to expose our students to different ideologies and points of view.  We must  allow each adolescent to make their own educated decisions. Thus, it is important as a teacher to remain neutral with every topic discussed so that students are not directed toward a specific decision. We must not allow our personal preferences to overly influence our students.  Rather, we must provide them with more generalized knowledge of different topics to enable each student to make their own decisions.