Religious Struggle

I am currently taking an Adolescent Development class. Thus far, I have been fascinated to find how much of the subject matter applies to my teenage self in various ways. At the time, I thought I was alone in my struggles, and since then, I have not thoroughly reflected on my experiences as part of the "adolescent experience." One such struggle was my struggle with religion. One of the books that I am reading for this class is reading is Understanding Youth: Adolescent Development for Educators by Michael J. Nakkula and Eric Toshalis.

I was reading a chapter about adolescents and religion and I was amazed by how well I related to it. The chapter discussed how attitudes towards religion change during adolescence as adolescence is a time of evaluating religion and existence. I was raised in a large catholic household. As a child, I followed the examples of my parents and older siblings in church. I would sit, stand, kneel, and fold my hands together in unison with those around me, never questioning what I was doing or why. I started asking those questions when I reached high school, however. At the time, it seemed like quite the struggle - going to church and religious classes every week expected to talk about my growth in faith. The whole time, I felt like I was drifting further and further away from the doctrines I was taught to follow.

In this chapter, the authors emphasized the importance of being open to talking about this struggle. While I feel I could relate my personal experience, I realize the sensitivity of this issue, especially in a public school setting. I did have an experience with one of my high school teachers bringing this struggle to light. After my biology teacher discussed the theory of Evolution, he said, "A student asked me once that if he believed in Evolution did that mean he didn't believe in God. That does not necessarily have to be the case. You see, something could have put that cell there. That is just something to keep in mind." No one in our class had posed that question, but he foresaw a potential for an internal battle. He wanted to give us some preemptive peace of mind. I hope I am able to have that same foresight with my future students.