Insight+from+Oracle

=Insight from Oracle=

Our Oracle Dena Tripodes helped our team greatly in understanding the development of teenagers throughout the last two decades, from her point of view as an educator. We began our research with a simple interview, asking questions about her experience as a teacher and mother to teenagers.

**Mrs. Tripodes, from your observations have teenagers changed at all during the course of the last two decades, whether it be behavioral or physical changes?**

"Teens for the most part haven't really changed. They all seem to share the same curiosity for knowledge, yet (for middle schoolers especially) they also seem to get easily distracted. However with this newer generation I have noticed that their attention spans seem to be shorter and retain information better in the form of sound bites. I think it is a result from the advancements in technology. Now kids have access to more 'gadgets'  than they did ten years ago and I think it's this new technology that is attracting their attention away."

**Have interests (educational and recreational) changed at all for teenagers?**

"No, for the most part my students seem to just as interested or uninterested in certain topics as they did a decade ago."

**How has raising teenagers of your own changed the way you view or interact with teens in general?**

"Before I had kids of my own I tried harder as a teacher to 'be friends with all my students'. Later I became ... less intimidated by them ... in a way. I suppose I have become more parental."

**Do you notice any significant personality differences as teens grow into young adults?**

"Not really. They do mature a lot more, but their core personality traits they had when they were younger are still there, they might just be more subdued. I guess they also become more engaging, for example they will talk to adults more and be more open with people they are not as familiar with, but that's just from my own experience."

**Have you noticed and differences between your male and female students?**

"I would say that the differences are more based on individuals and their personalities, it's not really divided between the two sexes. In general I have noticed that the class seems to naturally segregate, girls on one side, boys on the other. However once the kids reach high school that usually changes and they blend and mingle with one another better"

**You have taught children from many different backgrounds, have you noticed any differences between teenagers of different ethnic groups?**

"To be honest I haven't taught students from //all// over the world, as much as I would like for my class to be a mini UN, it isn't, so I would hate to make a generalization. Never the less, my students do come from different cultural and economic backgrounds along with having different experiences from family and school, which always brings something new to the table. But I can say, that although no two students have ever been exactly alike in the manner in which they were raised, there are not too many differences. You have to keep in mind that these kids might be different ethnicities, but are still being raised in the same country so it's not like I teach a teen who lived in a poor village in Mozambique and a teen who just moved from a metropolitan city from Germany, for example."

**One last question. As someone who is a social historian in their free time and who teaches history, do think that teens were different now then in the past like 100 or 200 years ago?**

**"**It's hard to answer a question like that because 'teenagers' are a relatively new phenomena. 100 years ago you were either a child or and adult, even then children did a lot of things that adults did, like manual labor. People had to learn to grow up quickly, at an early age they were suppose to get married and have children, because they just didn't live long enough or were wealthy enough to have a ten year period of "being a teenager".

**Thank you for your help and insight, this has been a big help to our group.**

**"** Your welcome, I'm happy to help any time. I wish you good luck on the rest of your research"