Centerville High School

Centerville, South Dakota
Teacher: Mitch Russell

 

 

Rite of Passage
By Randy Meyer

 

 

The strain our adolescents encounter could be attributed to cultural rather than physiological changes. I think that this statement is very true. In our society a person feels more worthwhile when they have a job or some kind of responsibility to give back to the community or the society in which they were brought up. You see the society we live in today is changing so rapidly that the adolescents today don’t really know where they are headed.

           

Society puts a lot of pressure on kids today.  Like most teenage adolescents might think that they have to go out and get a job to pay for something they want.  This is good but it takes away from the experience of growing up.  They go from being a child to an adult all because of the society we live in.  My mom always tells me that getting a job isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.  She says that it takes away from the more important things in life like playing sports or studying to try to get good grades.  This all goes back to trying to please society as an adolescent.  I think it’s good that young adults want to have more responsibility.  Having a job teaches them what adults must go through day after day.  But too much isn’t good either.  Too much responsibility cans make-work not fun when they finally do become an adult and get a real job.

           

Now that society is changing, family life is changing with it. Family life use to be supper at night with the family and talking around the TV before bed.  The most important thing is just spending time with your family as a young adult.  The young adults in this society try and find attention elsewhere when they don’t find it at home.  For example, they might join a gang just so they are accepted into a so-called family.  They might get into the wrong crowd and do some bad stuff just to be accepted.  This proves society puts stress on our young adolescents today.

           

Society also places pressure to have cool clothes or a nice car, which forces young adolescents to value money above all.  There is always someone out there in the world that may say that they do not value money above all but when it actually comes down to it every one values money, but they don’t always respect the money they are given.  The hunt for the mighty dollar is in all our eyes, some more than other.  In my opinion it is the money that makes the man.  Let me explain myself.  If you don’t have a lot of money than you won’t get the so-called finer things in life.  But if you do have a lot of money than you can have the best things in life and you will live happy. 

           

You shouldn’t need a lot of money to have to experience the finer things in life.  I feel that if you do have a lot then your so-called finer things are just bought.  You didn’t have to earn it. You just had it handed down to you.  So you will, in my opinion, have a false sense of what money is really about.  Now not everyone in the world is like that.  Most of us don’t know what its like to not have a lot of money.  We don’t know what it is like to go to bed hungry.  We as a society push away the not so well off and we stick to people who are just like us, well off.  The poor stay poor and the rich stay rich. We never give people a chance in our society and that is the way we were brought up. The so-called poor need a chance too you know.  It is a whole racial thing, that the well to do is off and feeling good about themselves because they know they will never give the not so well off a chance to reach their full potential.  That is not true in every case.  There are a few special people that do give people a chance and don’t just judge on their appearance or culture they are from.  People in this society are afraid of change.  They are afraid to appreciate someone and respect him or her due to their culture or their financial status.  This is our present culture and our present society.

 

Questions

 

Q1- Margaret Mead suggested that people are reminiscent not living up to their potential.  This is a reminiscent of a current Army recruiting commercial.

 

Q2- The issues of the 1920’s, like the importance of the language spoken in the home, and familial pressures on children, and misconceptions about race and color, and the effects of artificially separating children from a knowledge of birth, love and death, are all real issues that people suffer today.

 

Q3- I agree with Margaret Mead that “culture is man-make and that man is free to design it closer to the desires of his own heart” because culture is a set of attitudes and beliefs that are man made.

 

Q4- In Margaret Mead’s writing she was advocating the greater knowledge and control over the civilizing process.

 

Q5- Yes, I want adults to recognize what is going on and to enforce some boundaries and structure, but only to a point.  Boundaries are good but not on all things.  We need to learn some things on our own.  We need trial and error process.

 

Q6- I have seen many people smoke, and drink and even do some illegal stuff.  It is just a small town and it really is not out of control yet.  Small towns have small problems.

 

Q7- There really is no solution for the plight of the black teenager because the way society is now.

 

Q8- Yes, it would be a relief if all I had to do is go to school and learn.  I would not be very happy if I had to be home schooled because I would lack social skills.

 

Q9- Yes, more classes incorporating community based learning can be helpful, because that way we have more choices of what we want to learn.

 

Q10- The bottom line is very true, because we should get some older, more responsible people involved in different activities.