Avoiding Identity Foreclosure
Who am I? Who did I used to be? How have I changed? Why did I change?
The central explorations in every writing class I lead are the questions: “Who am I?” followed by “Who did I used to be?” followed by “And why and how did I change?”
I am fascinated by the fluxing identities of my high school students whose personalities wax and wane with the lunar phases. I have a front row seat as they enter wide-eyed and terrified into our giant school as tiny kidlets, then within months, are transformed into something entirely different- jaded, disaffected, desperate to be cool. Their second year, their third year, their senior year, they move through multiple stages of who-ness, trying on and casting off characteristics like outfits for every day of the year.
Who they become is a shifting dune of biology and psychology. They discover life triggers development right into graduation and adult life. This instability unnerves most of us. We don’t like uncertainty; it’s a threat to the identity we think we’ve finally figured out.
Today I was listening to Dr. Maya Shankar’s podcast A Slight Change of Plans, which is built around the science of human behavior that helps us understand how our identities shift when we face big changes. She mentioned the concept of “identity foreclosure,” when someone settles on an identity prematurely without exploring any other possible identities. I’ve met many students (and adults) who haven't engaged in any identity experimentation and adopt an identity based typically in their parents values and ambitions.
Research suggests that instead of foreclosing on one identity, we're better off trying on a range of possible selves. My granddaughter Harper gamely has tried track & field, swimming, volleyball, and field hockey, and last weekend, she told me she was ice skating for the first time. While changing sports isn’t the same as changing identities, what we do often figures into who we are and how we see ourselves. In that respect, she has figured out how to avoid the rigidity we often cling to to counteract the fear of change: accept the inevitable identity shift and ride the dune. Try new things. Get curious about what life has presented to you. Remain unstuck and fluid. Practice joy. Ask lots of questions about the world and your place in it.
So how do we go about creating a more malleable sense of self? Shankar advises that instead of attaching ourselves to a static identity (I’m a good student, I’m a star athlete, I’m a piccolo player), students should consider and ascribe to an identity that actually represents the behaviors they want to cultivate. By embracing an identity that says I go with the flow, I look forward to change, I am curious about what’s to come, we position or prime ourselves to remain unstuck and avoid identity foreclosure.
One way I encourage students to remain fluid and accept changes as a blessing instead of a curse is to chart this path from “who was I?” to “who am I now?” by using a simple writing activity that invites them to mine their past for artifacts or talismans of their identity during a specific place and time. Asking students to concretely and specifically describe an item in their past leads them to remember who they were during that time in their lives. Asking them to look at these artifacts as identity indicators from a third person’s perspective allows them to analyze their identity from the vantage point of self-distance which gives them a greater degree of objectivity about who they were and who they are now.
What was your favorite food?
In preschool ________________________________
In elementary school _________________________
In middle school _____________________________
What is your favorite food now in high school? ___________________________
If someone only looked at your favorite foods over your life, how do you think they would describe the evolution of your identity?
What were your favorite shoes?
In preschool ________________________________
In elementary school _________________________
In middle school _____________________________
What are your favorite shoes now in high school? ___________________________
If someone only looked at your favorite shoes over your life, how do you think they would describe the evolution of your identity?
What was your favorite toy?
In preschool ________________________________
In elementary school _________________________
In middle school _____________________________
What is your favorite “toy” now in high school? ___________________________
If someone only looked at your favorite toy over your life, how do you think they would describe the evolution of your identity?
Who was your friend group?
In preschool ________________________________
In elementary school _________________________
In middle school _____________________________
Who is your friend group now in high school? ___________________________
If someone only looked at your friend group over your life, how do you think they would describe the evolution of your identity?
Where was your favorite place?
In preschool ________________________________
In elementary school _________________________
In middle school _____________________________
What is your favorite place now in high school? ___________________________
If someone only looked at your favorite places over your life, how do you think they would describe the evolution of your identity?
How would you describe your identity?
In preschool ________________________________
In elementary school _________________________
In middle school _____________________________
In high school _______________________________
How would you describe the change of your identity over your life time? _______
By ending on an open-ended identity question, this activity allows students to build up to the self-analysis necessary to assess who they are and how they’ve changed over time using artifacts from their life.
What a great post! Thank you for the conversation about identity. Those three questions, although seemingly simple brought up a lot of stories for me before I even got to the object exercise. It is in my notebook and I will be exploring this over the next few days. Thank you for the amazing prompts.
What an awesome post! Thank you so much for sharing inspiring ideas. I am going to use this as a prewriting prompt for my students as they write "Dear Younger Me" letters. It is so important to ask frequently: Who am I? Where have I been? What am I doing here? So powerful and it begins with love.