The Journey:
A Myth to Live By

Rite of Passage forms foundation

The foundation of the curriculum is the Rite of Passage. Our premise is that our culture does not adequately "initiate" children into adulthood and acknowledge them as full members of the community.

Adolescence is a time of intense energy. In traditional cultures, elaborate rites of passage channeled that energy and used it as a springboard into adulthood. The rites said, "It is time to begin thinking in a new way, a community way." The rite, with its associated myths, gave the initiate patterns to follow in his or her new role. Moreover, the rites transformed not only the initiate, but the community as well. Through it, adults welcomed and acknowledged the initiate as one of them, with all respect, rights, and freedoms of adulthood.

Now, instead of using the energy of adolescence to propel kids toward growth, we try to control or suppress it. We provide no clear rituals to tell adolescents when to change their thinking and behavior, no myths to use as blueprints for their new roles. As a result, many young people are confused and frustrated. They feel alienated from their communities, which they feel don't treat them as adults, even when they act like adults. They are locked into "perpetual adolescence," with its rebellion, cynicism, frustration, and anger.

Nothing to write about

One manifestation of the problem we see in youngsters experiencing this problem is a feeling of dissociation from experience. When we ask students for autobiographical writing, we get responses like, "I don't have anything to write about. Nothing ever happens in my life." They don't value their own experience.

Through literature, film and writing, we try to help our students re-associate with their experiences and to recognize and respect the changes in their lives. We hope that if students can understand what is happening at these pivotal moments, they will honor their own points of passage and use experience to learn and grow.

What myth is forming you?

Psychologist C. G. Jung wrote, "I asked myself, `What is the myth you are living?' and found that I did not know. So...I took it upon myself to get to know `my' myth, and regarded this as the task of tasks...I simply had to know what unconscious or preconscious myth was forming me."

Children's "life-forming myths" are implanted by peers, teachers, parents, film, music, the media -- just about everything around them. We've seen these mythical roles at work in our own lives: the innocent, the martyr, the orphan, the wanderer, the warrior. What's more, these myths/roles become the filters through which we interpret life. We frame the meanings for our experiences based on the myth we've selected for ourselves.

"Our experience quite literally is defined by our assumptions about life," writes Carol Pearson in The Hero Within. "We make stories about the world and to a large degree live out their plots. What our lives are like depends to a great extent on the script we consciously, or more likely, unconsciously, have adopted."

By working with literature and writing, we want students to become conscious of their own myth-making process. Once they are, they can begin to control it and choose for themselves how they will frame experience and shape their futures.

Unfold your own myth

The 13th century Islamic poet Rumi wrote, "Don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth." We want to empower our students to do that, to understand the journeys in their lives and to see themselves as the heroes of their own stories.

We also want students to be able to see literature and film as "modern myths," stories that both reflect and guide the human experience. When they can do this, they will be able to make sense of what they watch and read, and they will be able to interpret even the most negative story in a way which fosters insight, growth and discovery.

Share the Journey

Follow the fox to order The Hero's Journey: A Guide to Literature and Life