Abstract
High achieving young men in secondary schools and universities face important social and emotional issues throughout their adolescence and passage into adulthood. This article focuses on four issues confronting bright young men: underachievement, self-inflicted pressure in athletics, cultural alienation, and father-son relationships. The author proposes the use of biography as a counseling strategy through which bright young men may gain helpful insights to deal with the problems they face.
“Every boy wants someone older than himself to whom he may go in moods of confidence and yearning. The neglect of this child’s want by grown people is a fertile source of suffering.”
— Henry Ward Beecher
Eyes and Ears
Heath
Heath signed a long, desperate sigh as he looked out the window overlooking the campus quad. Seated in his college advisor’s office, Heath explained his problem to a new professor assigned to him for academic counseling. Heath had been involved in escapades with other freshman males in his dormitory and the good times had hurt his academics. He had arrived at the university with a strong academic, athletic, and extra-curricular record but his first semester GPA was 1.6 and he was dissatisfied with his courses and no longer involved in sports. Overwhelmed by his lackluster beginning, he turned to his advisor for help. The professor suggested Heath read the biography of Bart Conner to consider approaches to balancing athletics and academics; Heath agreed to read it and meet again to discuss the book.
Jamal
Jamal spent one day each week at a regional resource center for high ability students and enjoyed the camaraderie and enrichment opportunities there. He was the only African-American student in the classroom and, although comfortable with his peers, his mother worried he might have trouble with his own people someday. Jamal’s teacher assembled biographies of gifted African-Americans so Jamal could read and discover insights to address potential cultural alienation.
Adam
Adam and several junior high friends were upset after not making the basketball team. At the counselor’s office the group heard a passage from Bob Greene’s sports biography about Michael Jordan being cut from his high school team and how Jordan later handled the situation. The boys were able to verbalize feelings of hurt, frustration, and disappointment. The counselor and coach planned regular group discussions and to share sports biographies so the boys could better understand their feelings and cope.
Steven
Steven was intensely emotional, and an experience viewing Lassie Come Home had been traumatic for him. He found comfort with a supportive high school English teacher who required journals; through reflective writing and teacher feedback Steven began to share poems and discuss a strained relationship with his father. The teacher recommended biographies of gifted men who had dealt with paternal estrangement; together they read and corresponded about father-son relationships.
BOOKS AS COUNSELING TOOLS
Heath, Jamal, Adam, and Steven benefited from teachers and counselors who shared carefully chosen biographies to help bright young men face developmental challenges. Books can be effective tools to help young people solve personal problems, develop self-concept, and promote emotional health. Using literature in counseling is referred to as bibliotherapy. Although empirical evidence is developing, there is support that bibliotherapy can be effective with above-average youngsters and is recommended in gifted education. Encounters with biographical or autobiographical works can provide identification and positive effects for gifted students.
“Identification occurs when young readers discover that they are not singularly alone in either their dreams and aspirations or their loneliness, frustrations, and disappointments.” (Flack, 1993, p.9).
The bibliotherapeutic process consists of identification, catharsis, and insight. Identification with a life story can allow a young man to view his problem from another perspective, gain catharsis, and obtain insight into motivations and behavior. Guided reading provides vicarious experience and the chance to try approaches to problems without real-life consequences.
Intelligent young men need introspection, but societal expectations often limit male emotional expression. Teachers and counselors must create supportive environments where reading becomes integral to emotional growth. Biographies may serve as role models and aid reflection in a safer third-person approach. Boys’ reading preferences often shift toward non-fiction in middle and high school, making biographies appropriate.
Guided reading requires meaningful follow-up discussion; simply reading is not bibliotherapy. Discussions, counseling, role-playing, and creative problem solving help gifted young men use biography for introspection and development of trust and relationships.
SUGGESTED BIOGRAPHIES AND AUTOBIOGRAPHIES TO ADDRESS THE ISSUES
The biography suggested for Heath was Bart Conner’s Winning the Gold (1985), which offers task-setting and goal-achieving strategies and a philosophy of life applicable to decision-making and discipline.
Classroom collections for Jamal included Brent Staples’ Parallel Times: Growing Up in Black and White; Benjamin Carson’s Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story; Carl Rowan’s Breaking Barriers; and Gordon Parks’ Voices in the Mirror: An Autobiography. These works offer perspectives on overcoming adversity, racial change, creative expression, and development of inner strength.
Sports biographies useful for athletic pressure issues include Bob Greene’s Hang Time: Days and Dreams with Michael Jordan; Larry Bird’s Drive: The Story of My Life; Tony Dorsett’s Running Tough: Memoirs of a Football Maverick; Carl Lewis’s Inside Track: My Professional Life in Amateur Track and Field; and Carl Yastrzemski’s Yaz: Baseball, the Wall and Me. Passages from these works can illustrate failure, self-doubt, intensity, and coping strategies.
Selections and discussions allow young men to see athletes as humans with faults and frustrations, to analyze feelings, and to be kinder to themselves. Counselors can use key passages rather than entire biographies to prompt group discussion and healing.
Steven’s issues about father-son bonding can be addressed through works such as Rod McKuen’s Finding My Father, Dan Rather’s I Remember, and Ralph Keyes’ Sons on Father: A Book of Men’s Writings, which explore father-son relationships and may provide models for expression and reconciliation.
STRATEGIES FOR USING BIOGRAPHIES WITH GIFTED YOUNG MEN
Teachers and counselors can prescribe books with planned follow-up, offer collections for self-selection, organize discussion groups with passages focused on issues, and use reflective writing. Group bibliotherapy sessions can include suggested readings, themes/key concepts, introductory activities, selected passages for discussion, sample questions, and follow-up creative activities.
Group Bibliotherapy Session Using Biography
1. Sports Biographies: Bradshaw, Terry (Looking Deep); Greene, Bob (Hang Time); Lewis, Carl (Inside Track).
2. Themes/Key Concepts: Celebrity athletes faced failure during adolescence; many athletes have dealt with self-doubt and great disappointments; it is impossible to reach perfection in athletics; demand reachable goals and enjoy the sport.
3. Introductory Activity: Define frustration, failure, and disappointment.
4. Selected Passages/Quotations: Use quoted passages from Bradshaw, Carl Lewis, Bob Greene, and others to prompt discussion about feeling devastated, being overshadowed, and learning to have fun.
5. Sample Discussion Questions: What does “I was devastated” mean? How does devastation feel? Have you felt that way? How did you deal with feeling overshadowed? What might athletes expect of themselves? What does “have fun” mean in sport?
6. Possible Follow-up Activities: Write letters to athletes about the discussion; write poems or song lyrics about sports feelings; design an advertisement to present personal qualities; write a pledge to be kinder to oneself.
Regardless of method — prescribed book, collection, discussion group, or writing experience — teachers and counselors must listen closely to young men’s feelings. The goal is shared awareness that others have experienced similar feelings and to foster a sense of “we are in this together.” Through biography and guided support, gifted young men can develop positive attitudes about abilities, relationships, and personal uniqueness, discover self-directed growth, and gain insights from the lives of other intelligent men.
