Identity and conscience formation and character development in adolescent boys depends upon acquiring human capital via inductive observation, imitation, and experience. Sociality and social interaction are the common denominators of male adolescent identity formation, conscience formation, and character development. Military schools create and sustain developmentally advantageous environments for adolescent boys, and military systems are remarkably effective at facilitating the ideal pairings of “best” educational principles with “best” educational practices and messages for adolescent boys. Military schools are thus exceptionally effective in the formation of the identity and conscience and development of character in adolescent boys because they provide young men with precisely the right types of atmospheres and experiences that are ideally suited to their learning styles. Military schools also enjoy significant educational advantages that allow for developmental agency, facilitate the development of “soft” skills, and help adolescent boys flourish.
TopTo claim legitimately that military schools are particularly well-suited to form and develop adolescent boys, one must first understand adolescence as a distinct and remarkable period of formation and development. The term “adolescence” comes from the Greek root “ado,” meaning to direct and nourish, and refers to either the period or process of forming, growing, maturing, and ripening into a fully formed adult. Thus adolescence is the formative period and process of teens becoming fully formed adults. One authoritative study characterizes adolescence as follows:
Adolescence is the bridge between a childhood surrounded by networks of external support, and adulthood, in which these networks are partially supplanted by the internal checks and balances that enable the individual to make wise choices when beyond the reach of childhood’s protective cocoon (Benson 1993, 7).
This characterization reinforces the notion that adolescence is a period of formation, development, and transformation.
The main elements that are “forming, growing, maturing, and ripening” are identity, conscience, and character, all of which are fundamental aspects of one’s very being. These components also form the basis of one’s personal human capital – oriented on the acquisition of individual knowledge, skills, and abilities, and consisting of the intrapersonal skills of self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-motivation – and are thus foundational and essential for reaching adulthood.
Human capital is inherently “poetic” in nature, in that it is intuitive, immediate to the knowing person, based upon human interaction and relationships, acquired by observation and experience, making it “unknowable” in the epistemological sense but nevertheless able to learned, and which is considered essential for one to flourish (Taylor 1998, 4-6). As will be shown, human capital, being based primarily upon poetic knowledge, is thus most readily acquired via inductive reasoning and in informal and non-formal learning environments.