Paoli High School

Paoli, Oklahoma
Teacher: Melinda Alfred

 

Rite of Passage

by Anna Tooman

12th grade

 

 

No single act or event can make the difference between an adolescent and a mature, responsible adult.  Adulthood cannot be achieved by jumping over a stick three times, going out into the wild alone, or passing a test of courage or intelligence. Being an adult is more than just being brave, or just being able to survive alone. It takes an understanding of individual and compound responsibility. Adults can no longer go along in life thinking only of themselves, but they must consider others. An adult must also take responsibility for his or her actions, unlike in childhood where if a youth was to mess up, it would most likely be up to some other authority to decide what is necessary to be done.  Too often teenagers will consider themselves adults, and yet they are not mature enough to be adult. In a world where mistakes are too often made and not often forgotten, this can be a major problem.  It can lead to an immature person causing harm to others repeatedly or to someone not ever feeling worthy enough to meet other’s standards.

 

Even if our local communities did initiate a rite of passage, who is to say that the youth of today would even care?  Many of them would go through the rite of passage and finish.   Communities would call them an adult but they would still act like the irresponsible, foolish adolescents they had been before, even though they would have completed the rite of passage that had been initiated by their community.

 

I do not think a rite of passage would help our youth transition into adults.  Teenagers will become adults when they are the ones to finally grow up and be responsible for their actions.  They will not make mature adult choices just because they have been made to go through a rite of passage. Many people feel that some of America’s youth grow up too fast, and act like an adult earlier than most teens.  For example, take the famous pop singer Britney Spears.  She has become a role model for girls these past couple of years, and just a few months ago she appeared in practically nothing on a cover of the Rolling Stone magazine.  She seems to enjoy wearing skimpy, midrift-showing, tight clothes and she has just recently turned eighteen years old.  For being that young she seems to try acting as an adult and wearing clothes not suitable for her age.  But how would having our local communities initiating a rite of passage change something like dressing to old for your age?  It would not, because there are so many little things such as this, that having teens go through a rite of passage would not be very effective or beneficial to them at all.

 

Exactly what does the term rite of passage mean?  What would you have to do to go through one?  Would you have to complete some kind of course, maybe take a test saying you can become an adult?  Many teenagers probably would not want to have anything to do with going through a rite of passage. Until one defines what the full meaning of the statement, rite of passage, then how can it make a difference in the lives of America’s youth?  A rite of passage cannot change you into an adult or make you grow up and be responsible for your actions.  It has to be done entirely on its own. 

 

Although teenagers come from different backgrounds they all will have choices that they will have to make to decide their future, which going through a rite of passage is not capable of doing.  For example, the death of a loved one can make a teenager grow up so much quicker than some of his or her peers, especially the ones that have never experienced such a tragedy in their young adolescent lives. It would affect their choices on whether they handle things like an adult or child. A rite of passage would not effect the way you would handle losing someone you loved. It would not magically be easier when you become an “adult”, than if you had never gone through the rite of passage in the first place.

 

Initiation into society, like coming out parties and other events are too conventional for modern times. These customs are no longer needed in our present day world and society.  People make their own initiation rights into society that reflect the changing times in our world. Teenagers have personal characteristics that allow them more freedom and encourages them to take their lives into their own hands, given they are mature enough to

handle the responsibility.

 

Questions

 

1. Mead says that young people are becoming less than they can be and the army says you need to be all that you can be

 

2. All of them are still considered issues today

 

3. Yes, act of developing intellectual and moral faculties

 

4. None of the above

 

5. Yes, adults don’t know how much stuff that teenagers go through on a daily basis, our lives are so hectic that we need boundaries and structure to help keep us sane

 

6.        

1-kids come to school bragging about how they get wasted on the weekends

2-some kids come to school stoned

3-some come to school drunk

 

7. No, people should get over racism and get on with their lives

 

8. Maybe somewhat, but I would want to have fun also

 

9. Yes it would help us understand how what we’re learning can be used in the real world

 

10. We all need someone to be our role model, to encourage us, talk to and care about us