Newell-Fonda High School
Newell, Iowa
Teacher: Connie Doonan

 

 

Sitting At The Adult Table

By Susan Mackey

 

 

People have to earn every right they have, that includes trust. If anybody expects trust from anybody, they have to earn it first. In Local Communities things are the same, there is already a rite of passage, especially for American Youth. In order to get any rite of passage, people must have the trust of older and younger people first. American Youth can’t learn how to earn people’s trust, especially not from schools; that is something they need to learn on their own.

           

American youth have so many opportunities to get out into the real world and learn things they could never learn in school.  That is not the fault of the school either. If school had to teach their students everything then the average school day would be ten hours long, and would have to have classes all year around. Students need to get out and do stuff if they expect any respect from anybody. There are so many people out there who are not afraid to hire a high school student for summer vacation, just on the weekends, or even just over Christmas break. Jobs can teach students things that they will need to know in the real world and having a job could be this rite of passage.

           

Some of this has to do with the student’s home life; parents need to realize that their children are growing up in a totally different world than they did. Parents also need to quit making excuses for their kids and give them a hand in what they are having problems with. Students of my day and age may say that they don’t need any guiding, but they do. Teenagers also need to do things on their own; it will stick in their head better and mean more to them in the long run. When students learn something on their own, it gives them confidence. Confidence is one thing that will help everybody make it through life. School can help their students gain confidence by telling them about their good qualities and not just focusing on their bad points, especially when grades come out. Students don’t just need this from school; they need it from home even more. Positive influence in the home is needed very badly for any rite of passage, no matter what angle it is coming from. One big rite of passage could be something as little as sitting at the adult table at the extended family Thanksgiving.

           

So, the question in life is, “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” Well, everybody does, and not everybody will become one. Some people are successful, and some are not so successful. People shouldn’t be judged on how much money they have, or what kind of car they drive. If they are happy with the job they hold, and they are making ends meet, then more power to them. If they are succeeding on their own terms then they deserve people’s respect. Success is a rite of passage, but that rite of passage shouldn’t be judged on how much money a person makes.

           

Society has changed so much when it comes to a student  going to college after high school. Twenty years ago a high school senior was probably asked the question quite often, “Are you going to college?” Well, the question has totally changed for the graduating class of 2000. The question is now asked like this, “Where are you going to college?” It is almost like people just expect that students are going to college.    

           

When I was ten years old, I met a woman who lived down the street from me. She has a six month old baby boy. I started to get very close to this family, and they even let me babysit by myself sometimes. I fell in love with this family, and three years later they had a new baby boy and lived in a new house. These two boys became a very big part of my life, and I became a very big part of theirs. I spent every spare second I had at their house, learning more about how to do things with little kids. I had to gain the families trust before they would let me be alone with their kids. The oldest boy is now nine and the other is six; they are still a huge part of my life. Brad and Jill, the parents, taught me things that school never had a chance to. School prepares me for my college experience, and college will prepare me for my career. But, Brad and Jill taught me the most important job of all, and that is to be a parent. They taught me how to love a child and how to discipline a child, the right way. They also let me learn a lot of things on my own. They let me teach myself, and there is no greater challenge then the challenge a child can give. I had to gain that rite of passage.

           

In conclusion, I think that Local Communities have already put that pressure on teenagers, as far as earning respect from their elders. Some teenagers may act like they have no respect to earn, but that is only the way they are. That rite of passage is there.       

           

 

Questions for Required Reading

           

Q1. Margaret Mead said, “I was not arguing with my contempory theorists in the hope of scoring theoretical points against them but for the future of young people who, in the United States were becoming less than they might be because we understood so little about what a difference can make. . .” I think she was referring to the quote “Be all that you can be.”

 

Q2. One issue of the 1920’s that is no longer an issue today is the importance of language spoken in the home. The way I understood the question, it wasn’t about what language was spoken, but the fowl language spoken. When my parents were growing up it was a totally uncalled for if anybody disrespected anybody through words. In this day and age, the six year old boy that I babysit tells me to “suck it.” Yes, he does get into trouble by me and his parents, but not nearly as much trouble as my father would have gotten into when he was that age.

 

Q3. Yes, I agree with what Margaret Mead said about man making what what he wants of his own culture. The cultures of the United States have changed so much in the past twenty years, because man was getting sick and tired of the old ways and needed to find a new way of doing things. In the dictionary, this is the definition of culture:  the act of developing the intellectual and moral facilities especially. by education.

 

Q4. In her writings Margaret Mead was advocating greater knowledge and control over the civilized process.

 

Q5. What Susan said in her speech really make a lot of sense to me, I understood where she was coming from. Today’s adults think they have everything under control and they don’t. They think they know everything that goes on in their child’s life. I think when parents enforce “boundaries and structure” they make the child feel more loved and safe. My peers and I may get mad and not agree right off hand, but in the long run, it will be worth it.

           

Q6. Three things that I have seen or heard about that I know have been true about drugs

and alcohol among students in my school are:  when I was a junior I heard some upper classman talking about getting high the weekend before, heard about parties where the students parents were out of town and they were going to have alcohol, I have been around students who smoke.

 

Q7. No, people may say they aren’t raciest, but racism will never stop. It will always be in people’s minds, no matter what end of it they are on.

 

Q8. Yes, so much stress would be taken off if I didn’t have to worry about tests and papers. I wouldn’t mind going to an all girl school, I could focus more on school work and less on social work.

 

Q9. “Schools are like prisons because they don’t teach you how to live.” I don’t agree with that. The school I have attended since I was in first grade has done a great job in teaching me how to live. I didn’t just learn it from the teachers either, my peers have had a great impact in that. “People in school are dulled by the remoteness to the real world.” That quote makes some sense to me. School sometimes makes the real world sound a lot worse than it really is. A part of me also disagrees with the quote because we talk about all current issues in some classes.

 

Q10. In the bottom line, the writer mentions that the issue is friendship. I totally agree there. When the writer is talking about lecturing kids, how can anything help if the person whom is lecturing isn’t friends with the person they are lecturing. If there is a friendship between those people then the lecture will have so much more meaning.