Rockridge High School
Taylor Ridge, Illinois
Teacher: Barbara Downey
Rite Of Passage
By Julie Thirtyacre
Grade 12
In today’s society teens are not made to feel like adults. They are not made to have responsibilities and if they do try to act like an adult, they only get shot down. Adults need to recognize that adolescence is a time for teens to learn and see what society is really like.
Many times adults look at teens and automatically think we are irresponsible and we are only trouble. Adults should get to know teens better, and this way adults can experience first-hand that adolescence is a time for learning and all teens are trying to do is be someone in society. Adults need to spend time from their busy schedules to get to know us. That is part of what is wrong in today’s society. There is no time for us! We get pushed aside time and again and we act out to get noticed.
Adults need to recognize our talents, and one way is to interact with us is programs like job-shadowing. There is so much that teens do not know and job shadowing is a good experience. Teens can see what type of environment they might be working in some day and what type of people they would be working with. It is an opportunity to interact with the adult world and a time to show responsibility. There is much that can be learned with the help of adults and by showing us that they care, will make us gain respect and knowledge.
A big part that is missing in today’s society is the part that is not being played by teachers and administrators. A lot of students do not like teachers knowing each and every little thing about them, but maybe it is time for teachers to get to know their students. Students feel inferior to teachers because they feel like teachers have no idea what it is like to be them. You go into class every day and some teachers get up in the front of the room and talk about the lesson and never seem to care about the students. That is when we feel lonely and sometimes it is better to get to know the people that teens are with each and every day.
In our yearbook class this year, the yearbook staff wanted to put in a survey of many different things. One of the questions was: have you ever drunk alcohol? The teachers refused to let them print this and once again the topic is ignored. There is no big deal with asking students what they have and have not done. Teachers need to know what is going on in their schools and recognize the problem rather than throwing it aside and thinking that ignoring it is better than addressing it.
Every day we hear of violence in schools. There have been way too many school shootings, and there has to be something done to prevent this. Teaching children what is right and what is wrong when they are younger is a good way to prevent this from happening again. Children should know that killing another person is not right, but obviously violence has not been correctly spoken about in the homes of teens today. Parents need to sit down and have a one-on-one conversation with their child. Parents need to be more open with their kids and really get to know what kind of person they have brought up. Kids can be so deceiving, and parents can overlook problems that their children are having and think that everything is okay. During the teen years, kids experiment with so many different things and parents have no idea what is going on. Parental involvement is a major key in the time of adolescence. Kids take advantage of their parents and that is something that should not happen. Parents should know what their children are doing and get to know the real child they think they know so very well.
There needs to be some type of program where teens can feel that they are making some kind of progress in today’s society. I truly believe that teachers should set up a time during their homeroom period when they can get to know their students. Teachers can then make their students more comfortable when the student needs help with something or whatever it may be. Sometimes students feel like their time is wasted in school, and maybe if teachers would get know their students they
could find a way to make the time that the students are there more enjoyable.
The community could designate a day when students could help the elderly. The elderly to me are the most stubborn people, but there are times when they love to see young people and that is what puts a smile on their face. Teens could learn a lot about what it takes to be accepted and what it takes for the elderly to accept their time and effort. It takes a lot of patience to help someone when you do not know a thing about him or her, but that is what makes every minute worth it. It
would be a good experience for all teens, and maybe it could help them realize what mistakes we teens have made.
Adolescence is a time when teens need to find out what role they fill in today’s society, whether it is a positive role or a negative role. But they also need to see what difference they can make. It is hard trying to be accepted into a society that sees adolescence as a time when teens do not amount to anything. We need to be heard and there needs to be an understanding that adolescence can only be improved with the help of what we want to become, an adult. Who would know better than the people that take us for granted. There needs to be some kind of interaction, and maybe then we can be understood and a different side of us would shine through.
Questions
Q1- What does Margaret Mead say at the start of her 1961 Preface
to Coming Of Age In Somoa that is reminiscent of a current Army recruiting
commercial?
-She is basically saying that you should be all you can be.
Q2- Which of the following issues of the 1920’s are no longer
issues today?
1. The importance of the language spoken in the home
2. Familial pressures on children
3. Misconceptions about race and color
4. The effects of artificially separating children from a knowledge of birth, love and death
-I personally believe that all of these are still issues today and kids today need to know the importance of them. I think that more and more adults think that children already know about these issues and adults put it aside and ignore them.
Q3- Do you agree with Margaret Mead that "culture is man-made and that man is free to design it closer to the desires of his own heart? What definition of "culture" do you find in your dictionary?
-Yes; development of education
Q4- In her writings Margaret Mead was advocating:
1. a return to primitive ways
2. greater knowledge and control
over the civilizing process
3. an integration of the
primitive and civilized
4. none of the above
-She was advocating the greater knowledge and control over the civilizing process. Mead mentioned this in her writing.
Q5- Comment on Susan’s speech (page 60 A Tribe Apart)
Do you and your peers really want adults to recognize what is going on and to enforce
"boundaries and structure"?
-Susan had some really good points in her speech and I believe that same things that she does. Adults do need to be aware of what is going on in our lives. I am not saying that adults should watch each and every step that we take, but adults tend to ignore us and that is part of the problem. This is why some kids turn to drugs and alcohol. They feel they need to be recognized and this is a way that they can get some attention.
Q6- Write three things that you "absolutely, positively know, saw or experienced concerning drugs and alcohol among" students at your school.
-Drugs and alcohol are not hard to come by. A lot of the students do them and sometimes it surprises people because of the certain students that do them. I have been offered and many of my friends have too. Almost every weekend there is a party and there is drugs and alcohol there.
Q7- Do you have a solution for the "plight of a black
teenager"?
-Maybe they could prove to those certain people that because they are of a different color does not mean that they are necessarily trouble. They could get to know these types of people and show them what they are really like.
Q8- Would it be a relief if all you had to do was "go to classes and learn"? Would you be happy if you were home-schooled or attended a single-sex private school where academics were presented in an exciting way and learning was admired even by peers?
- I think it would be a major relief if all we had to do were go to class and learn. If school could be more enjoyable then I would be glad to be any of those. I do not necessarily dislike school, but it can get boring learning things over and over. In today’s society school is something that we are told to attend and many others would rather be doing something else than being at school.
Q9- Comment on the line from Pete Seeger: "Schools are like prisons because they don’t teach you how to live." And Jonathan’s comment "People in school are dulled by the remoteness to the real world." Would more classes incorporating community-based learning be helpful?
-You go to school every day and learn things that do not help you with the real world. Teachers try to teach you what college is going to be like in the classroom, but that is as far as they will go. In a way students are clueless as to what to think about the real world and we do have a lot to learn.
Q10- Comment on the "bottom line"
-People need to get on a personal basis and get to know how to kids one by one instead of knowing them as a "tribe." Some kids, not all, use the harmful things as a way to get noticed. They feel they need to be part of the group. Adults are about as clueless as we are. Maybe they need to know hands-on what is really going on in the world today.