Concordia High School
Concordia, Kansas
Teacher: Judy Zimmerman

 

 

 

Today’s Teen’s, Tomorrow’s Future

By Kara Hopkins

12th Grade

 

 

Today when high school teenagers go to enroll in school they can choose what classes they want to take and at what time they want to take that class.   There are several classes that the students are required to take by the state school board.  Most schools and states require that you take one if not more credit hours in each academic area such as math, science, English, social science, and art.  The students fill the vacant hours with elective courses.  Students usually choose elective courses that interest them or are related to the career that they hope to pursue.  The courses, either required or elective, that the students take are teaching them skills whether they be running a computer or solving a story problem.  These skills will be important in their future career when looking at the classes taught in high school there is not one course that teaches you all the essential needs for surviving in the world today and tomorrow.  There needs to be a lifestyle class that all seniors in high school are required to take.  This class would help teenagers to realize the responsibility that they would have as an adult.  It would teach the seniors financial skills, independent living, how to find a job or a profession that interests them and time management.  This class would be required by the state school board and they would have to pass the class in order to graduate.  This class would be a rite of passage to develop mature adults ready to experience the real world.

           

The lifestyle class would start off by teaching students how to live on their own.  Most high school students move out of their parents' or guardian’s house after their senior year or sometime in their life.  Most teenagers grow up with their parents paying the bills, paying for insurance, buying or renting their house, and cooking food for the teenager.  Most parents do not even stop to teach their children the process of each of these responsibilities.  If they never paid any attention to what their parents do how are they going to know how to accomplish these tasks?  This class would show teenagers how to cook, wash clothes, and buy a house.  The financial management section of the course would explain banking and how to set up accounts along with demonstrating the process of getting a loan.  Financial management would also consist of budgeting bills with your income.  They would also learn how to set up checking accounts, savings accounts, and how to use credit cards wisely.   This is a very important part because there are even adults today that have a hard time managing their money or eventually go bankrupt.  Another part they could include in this section but it would not be as essential as the other two topics would be investing money that would inform students about stocks and tactics for drawing interest.

           

Another responsibility high school students are going to have to face after school is finding a job or a college to attend.  By the time high school students are seniors they know what interests them or have an idea of something they might like to pursue.  Most of the seniors do not know how to go about finding a way to pursue that career, how much education it will take, or what the income of that job would be.  The overwhelming pressures intimidate other students and choices they put it off until the last minute.  At this time it would be perfect to experience apprenticeship or job shadowing.  This class would require that you participate in apprenticeship or job shadowing so you can experience it first hand and not just read about it.  Another project you would develop in this class would be your own job resume.  This resume would be professional so it could be submitted to colleges and at future job interviews.  This experience would help the student know what is expected and give them a head start on applying for jobs or college. 

           

The fourth requirement for this class would be family living and planning.  Today in high schools there are students that have children of their own or are expecting soon.  This section would help prepare the students for parenthood, educate them on contraceptives, and caring for children.  Many time students do not realize the responsibility having children is until it is to late.  An increase in education on this issue could help in prevention in teen pregnancies and show them how to start a family when they are prepared for one.

           

The last requirement this course would cover would be time management.  This seems to be a big issue in everyone’s lives today.  This skill would come in especially helpful when the seniors start college so they would be able to manage their time or set up schedules when working in the world.  These required sections would make the students more responsible and see what responsibility they will have when paying bills, attending classes or their job, and having children.

           

This course is just one suggestion for a rite of passage.  It may not work for all students, since every student learns differently.  This would be a good way to start learning about the responsibilities of being an adult.  The students would not learn everything from this course either.  Responsibility is taught through experiences but this class could help students realize the responsibility they will have.  It would also relieve the feelings of intimidation by familiarizing them with the events they will face.  Rites of passages use to be considered taking your son with you when going hunting for food or teaching you daughter how to sew and cook.  Today and tomorrow requires teenagers to be educated on issues such as balancing a budget and applying for jobs in a competitive world.  If we are going to demand the best person for the job we need to train them for that job.  They might as well start off in high school because not every senior will continue in college but they will have the skills needed to be responsible citizens after taking this course.

 

Elkind, David.  The Social Determination Of Childhood and Adolescence.  Medford,

MA:  Tuffs University, 1998.  Online.  Internet.  8 Dec. 1999.  Available World

Wide Web:  http://www.edweek.org/ew/vol-18/24elkind.h18.

Holmes, Jan.  Why Do We Need Rites of Passage?  The Deer Tribe Metis Medicine

Society, 1998.  Online.  Internet.  9 Dec. 1999.  Available World Wide Web: 

http://www.dtmms.org/readingroom.why_rites.htm.                                         

Olson, Lynn.  The Common Good.  Editorial Projects in Education, 1999.  Online. 

Internet. 8 Dec. 1999.  Available World Wide Web:          

http://www.edweek.org/ew/vol-18/20access.h18

 

Questions

 

Q1.  What does Margaret Mead say at the start of her 1961 Preface to Coming Of Age In Samoa that is reminiscent of a current Army recruiting commercial?

 

A1. The Army slogan says “Be all that you can be in the Army,” but Margaret Mead says we are becoming less than we might become because we understand so little about what a difference culture can make in terms of stress and strain in individual fulfillment or defeat.

 

Q2.  Which of the following issues of the 1920’s are no longer issues today?

The importance of the language spoken in the home.

Familial pressures on children.

Misconceptions about race and color.

The effects of artificially separating children from a knowledge of birth, love and death.

 

A2.  The issues of the importance of the language spoken in the home is no longer a problem today as it was in the 1920’s.  This is because most families have adjusted to this problem.  There are still familial pressures on children everyday.  Parents are expecting a star performance or a big scholarship from their children.  Today blacks are still the primary connection with gangs even though the percentage may have gone down.  They are the one being blamed for the problems.  There are still cases where children do not know that the true meaning of birth, love and death.

 

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 won heart?”  What definition of  “culture” do you find in your dictionary?

 

A3.  I agree with Mead and think culture is becoming more flexible and people are setting their own traditions.  People are personalizing their families by making their own culture and not asking anyone to do what they do but doing something different and personal to them.  This is very evident in marriages.  Two Americans with supposedly the same culture get married and yet there are so many different opinions on things.  Culture to me means setting traditions in your life and job.  It has some meaning not just something you do.

 

Q4.  In her writings Margaret Mead was advocating: a return to primitive ways

greater knowledge and control over the civilizing process an integration of the primitive and civilizednone of the above.

 

A4.  In Mead’s writings she was advocating the integration of primitive and civilized.  She was demonstrating how the primitive human beings problems have been fixed by the civilized.  The civilized have taken the problem and changed; they have evolved into what they are now. 

 

Q5.  Comment on Susan’s speech.  Do you and your peers really want adults to recognize what is going on and to enforce “boundaries and structure?”

 

A5.  I think adults need to realize and take responsibility for their actions.  That what they do conveys mixed messages to kids.  At school or from their parents they hear smoking and drinking is wrong but yet their parents do it or other respected adults.  How are they going to not try it when their role models do it?  Adults should realize what is going on and set boundaries for their kids and a structure for them to follow.

 

Q6.  Writ three thing that you “absolutely, positively know, saw or experienced concerning drugs and alcohol among” students at you school.

 

A6.  A kid had open lunch and went home to eat lunch and while he was gone he drank alcohol.  Another kid had alcohol in his car while parked at school.  A kid came to school high.

 

Q7.  Do you have a solution for the “plight of the black teenager?”

 

A7.  A possible solution for the “plight of the black teenager” would be that people need to learn to accept people for who they are and not judge people by the color of their skin.

 

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?

 

A8.  I feel if all you did was to go to school and learn.  School is a learning in itself.  Personalities and social skills are learned at school.  These skills will help you learn how to live in the real world, how to deal with people, and builds character.  I feel home schooling does not teach adequate social skills and if you are home-schooled they need to supplement some kind of social activity.  Single-sex private schools prevent the integration of the opposite sex in classes and could cause a misunderstanding of how the opposite sex acts and relationships with the opposite sex.

 

Q9.  Comment on the line from Pete Seeger:  “Schools are like prisons because they do not 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?

 

A9.  Making an activity as life like as possible is the best way to learn.  It is easy to remember how to make product if you are actually in the assembly line not just reading directions.  Replicating the activities in school is not the same as actually being in the business and having that atmosphere.

 

Q10.  Comment on the “bottom line.”

 

A10.  I agree with this, that adolescents needs a mentor, someone to listen to them and understand them and not incriminate them like parents do or tell them I told you so.  This will help adolescents make better choices and be more confident about their choices.  It also makes them think somebody does care about them and gives them a sense or self worth.