Interests
“We need to help them [teens] explore possibilities for their passions and give them the tools necessary to explore those passions.”
– Youth Services Coordinator at an Urban Midwest Library
Learning that is driven by teens’ interests better aligns with their personal motivations and goals, leading to deeper learning and higher achievement. This helps all youth dig into learning in ways that may not be possible in traditional education settings.
What Does Learning Through Interests Look Like?
- Library staff get to know teens and what they’re interested in from filmmaking to their favorite TV series and from nutrition to cooking.
- Teens explore and form new interests through activities where they can simply “mess around.” There are also opportunities to dig more deeply into a topic if they want to.
- Teens know it’s OK to “quit” working on or learning something new if they lose interest in it.
- Peers and adults help teens to design pathways for learning more, develop interests and recognize achievements
Learning Through Shared Interests
In this video, these teens talk with author Jennifer DeLeon about their lived experiences, demonstrating how they learn with and from each other and DeLeon through their shared interest in reading. The teens speak openly with DeLeon about how they are treated by peers and the micro-agressions they often face. These experiences helped the teens build trusting relationships that have led to exploring mutual interests together.
Following is a lengthy excerpt of the full conversation. Although it is longer than most videos in the ConnectedLib Toolkit, we encourage you to watch it if you have time. It provides an insightful look into the lives of the teens, their interests and passions, and the power of trusting relationships.
This is an excerpt from a much longer discussion. You can see the full 1 hour 40 minute video on YouTube.
Building Identity Through Interests
The teen years are a time for identity formation. Young people are becoming more independent of their caretakers and learning more about themselves and the world as they interact with people, culture, and society. Connected learning can help teens construct their identity as they pursue their passions and explore new interests.
At the Providence Public Library teens gain confidence and develop their identity through the freedom to explore that they are allowed to have in the library’s teen programming.
Worksheet #4: Interest-Based Learning
Think back to a time in your youth when an adult tried to get you to learn something you weren’t interested in. Then think of a time you were very interested in learning about something. How did those experiences differ? Here are a few questions to get you started:
- How much time did you spend learning about the topics?
- Do you still remember anything about the topics?
- How engaged were you with the topics—did you ask questions or do your own research?
- How did the adult (if any) in the situation interact with you?
Now think about the teen services at your library. What do your answers to the previous questions tell you about your library’s teen services?