Preparing Teens and Young Adults for Romantic Relationships and Deep Friendship

EDU H681 Subject & Catalog Number

Description

How might we better enable teens and young adults to cultivate both deep, meaningful romantic relationships and friendships? Students can draw on developmental psychology, moral philosophy, education research, and the arts and humanities to examine what it takes to love wisely and well, the key capacities at the heart of close relationships, including empathy, self-awareness and generosity, and how these capacities can be developed in schools and other settings. Class time will primarily consist of brief student presentations and discussion.  Students will be asked, either individually or in groups, to assess an existing program or strategy that seeks to cultivate close relational capacities in young people or to develop their own strategy. Alternatively, students can share a brief reading, video, podcast or film clip that sheds light on a key aspect of close relationships. Students will leave with both a deepened understanding of the relational capacities that underpin a good life and concrete, practical strategies for cultivating them in young people.