The Means to Grow Up: Reinventing Apprenticeship as a Developmental Support in Adolescence »

Robert Halpern is Professor at the Erikson Institute for Graduate Study in Child Development.

In The Means to Grow Up, Robert Halpern describes the pedagogical importance of "apprenticeship"—a growing movement based in schools, youth-serving organizations, and arts, civic, and other cultural institutions. This movement aims to re-engage youth through in-depth learning and unique experiences under the guidance of skilled professionals. Employing a "pedagogy of apprenticeship," these experiences combine specific, visceral, and sometimes messy work with opportunity for self-expression, increasing responsibility, and exposure to the adult world.

Grounded in ethnographic studies, The Means to Grow Up illustrates how students work in unique ways around these meaningful activities and projects across a range of disciplines. Participation in these efforts strengthens skills, dispositions, and self-knowledge that is critical to future schooling and work, renews young peoples’ sense of vitality, and fosters a grounded sense of accomplishment. In unearthing the complexities of apprenticeship learning, Halpern challenges the education system that is increasingly geared towards the acquisition of de-contextualized skills. Instead, he reveals how learning alongside experienced adults can be a profoundly challenging and complex endeavor for adolescents and offers readers an exciting vision of what education can and should be about.

Introduction 1

Pt. I Theoretical Bases

1 Apprenticeship as a Teaching and Learning Framework 17

2 Apprenticeship and the Tasks of Adolescence 33

Pt. II Cases

3 Apprenticeship in the Framework of High School Reform 53

4 The Broader Base of Apprenticeship Experiences 95

Pt. III Reflecting on Apprenticeship

5 The Experience of Apprenticeship: From Both Sides 143

6 Benefits of Participation in Apprenticeship 163

7 The Limits and Limitations of Youth Apprenticeship 189

Conclusion 203

Appendix 205

Notes 209

References 213

Index 223