From childhood to adolescence. Training educators for an unpredictable age group

Early adolescence is a particularly complex stage of life where the building of personal identity is concerned, although its educational needs can tend sometimes to be underestimated. Contemporary pedagogy must therefore focus attention on the real needs of early adolescents, during a period when the stages in the course of human life seem disrupted and the very sense of growing up is hard to grasp. This means that there is a need for educators — not only in the family and in schools, but in the non-formal system too — having the responsibility and skill to take up the educational mission of accompanying early adolescents on their journey through what should be a flourishing life.