Relating to Adolescents: Educators in a Teenage World

by Susan Eva Porter

Teaching teenagers can be very rewarding; it can also be very challenging. Relating to Adolescents helps adults who work with teenagers to understand what happens in their dynamic with students. From the "Five Things Teens Need from Grown-Ups" to the "Seven Grown-Up Skills," this book covers all aspects of the adult-teenager relationship and provides educators with guidance and practical tips on how to increase their effectiveness in their work with teenagers in schools.

Genres: Education

214 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Porter sets out clear boundaries with students and uses practical examples of how they protect both teachers and students. A good resource to have on the shelf, any educator working with middle and high school students may benefit from a refresh of this before the start of every school year. Practitioners interested in reflective practice could easily use the chapter reflections to guide some excellent discussions.

[Emma Goldin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Had to read this work and it was very good

[Patrick Cook · Rating 5 out of 5]

I re-read this recently in part to prepare for a new school year and in part to see if it was as good as I remembered it being (seeing as I have now recommended it to other people). Yes, it is. It remains the best book I've read on teaching adolescents. It is a mystery to me why it's not better known, and why it's not more frequently recommended or assigned to new teachers.

Since the book is comparatively so poorly known, it's perhaps worth saying a bit more about the author. Porter is apparently currently the head of school in the Bay Area, but she wasn't when she wrote this book. Before writing, she studied art history at Brown and earned her master's in education at Penn, after which she taught at Phillips Exeter for two years. Like many people who write about teaching, she left the classroom fairly early on. Unlike most of them, she earned a master's in social work and a doctorate in clinical psychology and worked with adolescents in a clinical capacity both inside and outside of schools.

The book gives a quick overview of adolescent psychology, including the different developmental stages from ages 10-18. It then gets to its main focus, which is on the relationship between teenagers and their teachers, and how to make these as meaningful and healthy as possible. She gives several examples of potential pitfalls and explains how to avoid them. Most of her advice, it's true, could be boiled down to "be authentic, but keep healthy boundaries." Where she excels, though, is in giving concrete examples of successful and unsuccessful attempts to do this.

I would still recommend this to any new teacher and veterans can probably learn from it as well.

[Kathleen]

One of the best books I've read about teaching and interacting with teens. I wish someone had given me this book years ago, at the start of my career.

[Shelby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Would have been a great article. Not quite enough for a book. I found it a little repetitive.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author tended to be repetitive, but I liked the case studies used to illustrate her points.