Rockridge High School
Teacher: Barbara Downey
Grade 12
No desire to succeed, sleeping in class, wishing that school was over--what is wrong with youth today? Lately the trend of students seems to be focused on mediocrity during school in order to have fun when the day ends. Students have strayed from the basic values of hard work toward a "just get by" attitude. Maybe the students are afraid to enter the adult world with all of its problems, or maybe adolescents do not see school as a means for entering the adult world. I believe now is the right time to institute a mentoring program for today’s high school students. This would not only give a definite right of passage for all adolescents, but the transition into adulthood would be a less hectic time in their lives.
Today many youth struggle for an act that will give them identity as an adult. Many of my fellow classmates consider the act of tattooing and body piercing to be a significant rite of passage in adulthood. This is not true for two reasons. First of all, the vast majority of today’s youth do not participate in these two acts. Many teens do not want to mark or deform their own body for a social status symbol. Secondly, many recipients of tattoos and piercing go behind their parents’ back to get them. The age requirement is 18, but many kids get adult friends to sign the consent waiver in order to hide the adornment from the parents’ eyes. This not only is mischievous, but also shows a lack of maturity that adulthood should bring about.
Students have also considered the acquisition of a job as a way to cross into the world of adulthood. Recently, more students drop out of high school in order to live alone and work a full-time job. This also creates an unsuccessful rite of passage that reduces graduation rates, in turn reducing the number of qualified applicants for the job market. Without these qualified applicants, the quality of workers diminishes, creating a lack of competition in the work force. The students also lose out on valuable classes that can boost the level of jobs and increase pay.
Another common problem for teens who want adult responsibilities is the abuse of alcohol. This seems to be the most widely used act by youth who wish to feel older and more adult-like. Problems arise when alcohol use occurs at such an early age. Junior high students are most definitely not adults, and they should not consume alcohol. Even though alcohol is a banned substance until the age of 21, more and more minors consume large quantities in order to feel accepted by the older, "in crowd." The lack of benefits and the harmful nature of alcohol destroy any theory that alcohol use makes a person more of an adult.
Students who desire a rite of passage to feel accepted and wanted need to petition their school for a mentoring program that will be useful in making the awkward transition into the world of adult responsibilities. This program could begin with less homework and more in-class work. In order for youth to get the education to compete in life, they must be able to learn in an environment that gives answers to questions that plague their developing minds. This environment is school. By doing more in-class work under an eight-block schedule, the student has the advantage of being observed by the teacher for two hours at a time. Each semester, this system gives four classes each day for two hours, instead of one. With an extra hour each day more work is completed while in the classroom. At home, students may be rushed to do their assignment, which results in sloppy penmanship and hasty work. Under the lengthened supervision of teachers, the students would be pushed to do more work with better results, in turn, enhancing the learning process.
The second piece of a successful adolescent training program is the assignment of a personal mentor to each student. He/she would be a volunteer, active or retired, adult businessperson responsible for a weekly session with his/her student to discuss aspects of adult life. From his/her personal experience, the mentor can instruct each student on such subjects as how to balance a checkbook, how to balance a budget, or how to wash their own laundry. With the lack of homework given by the school, the mentor has the power to assign applicable projects for the students to work on. Investing in the stock market is a process that certain students may never experience without a mentor to instruct them on the basics. With this knowledge, a young student has the potential to acquire a significant amount of assets before he/she retires. The student might be given an imaginary sum of money to invest for a specific time period. This, along with other simulations, will give priceless life experience. With the guidance of a caring adult, many "problem students" may be given enough attention and discipline to open up talents that may have gone otherwise undetected.
With all of the problems in raising today’s teens, many adults are asking what can be done. A mentoring program would be a valuable tool in teaching young students the basics of living as an adult. Without such a program in place in our schools, many students will go on initiating themselves into the adult world with alcohol, tattooing, piercings, or by attempting to live on their own. These rites of passage are no longer acceptable for our youth. It is time for our community to speak up and request a change.
Margaret Mead emphasizes at the beginning of the preface that young people are limited as to the success they can achieve. I believe that she blames the lack of culture being a way to gain individual fulfillment. She said that our nation’s people are "becoming less than they might be," due to that fact. This is reminiscent of the Army slogan of the same theory - "Be all you can be."
In today’s society, the importance of the language spoken at home has diminished. With numerous languages spoken in America, many people have learned a language differing from their home language in order to compete in our multi-cultural society. Families today have lost importance as the primary place to learn life’s lessons. The focus on school and peers has lessened family pressures on children. The parents still want their children to succeed and learn the right things, but with learning occurring outside the home, parents realize the lessons will be learned whether or not they are solely responsible. Prejudice, on the other hand, is still an issue today. Hate crimes and stereotyping occurs today as it has for decades. However, the acceptance of these practices has lessened since the 1920’s. Today it is impossible to completely separate anyone from birth, love, and death, without total isolation. This would no doubt lead to a severe outcry over the abuse of human rights. This practice no longer seems to be relevant in today’s society.
Culture is an ever-changing thing. It is made up of the actions and beliefs of the society. If the people change their behavior, then the culture of that society changes, too. In my dictionary, culture is defined as: "the integrated pattern of human behavior that includes thought, speech, action, and artifacts and depends upon man’s capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations."
Margaret Mead was advocating a greater knowledge and control over the civilizing process. As Americans, we need to raise our young people in a way that prepares them for their upcoming life. As it stands now, most teens jump into the adult world without the knowledge to succeed. By understanding the needs of adolescents preparing for life, we might be able to avoid the stress and problems associated with young adults.
I feel adults need become wiser and observe some of the sneaky things teens do because they feel adults are "too old" to understand. More rules, though, would give kids more boundaries to break for the attention they receive for being rebellious. If parents and teachers took time to talk to the kids, they might stop some of the actions because they received the attention the desire. More rules would limit kids, resulting in a further dislike for authority.
As a student in my high school, I have witnessed several incidences of students using illegal substances while at school or at school events. The first is the abuse of alcohol while attending school. I have observed students who have brought vodka and orange juice to school in Sunny Delight bottles. At our 1999 girl’s track Sectionals, students brought fruit punch bottles into the event. Of course, the majority of the liquid in the bottle was vodka, not fruit punch. The most obvious abuse of a substance in my school is the use of chewing tobacco while in class. Students bring half-full soda bottles into class to dilute the tobacco juice they spit. Teachers surely notice the "dip" in the lower lip of these students, but they rarely say anything. It seems the teachers don’t want to take the time to send the kids to the office when they know they will do it during the next hour anyway.
In our society, most black teenagers are stereotyped as being a bad group of kids. In many cases, those students take the stereotype as being true and act on it. This only intensifies the negative image that people have toward these students. The only solution for overcoming this problem is for all black teenagers to behave and overcome the stereotype. This seems as though it would work, but even though a majority cause no problem, the few who are stuck in the rut of the negative image ruin the chances of the whole group to be trusted.
I personally would learn more if I had the opportunity to learn at an accelerated pace. I do not really want to be home-schooled or attend a single-sex institution. Even though I am frustrated by the problems in my school regarding mediocrity in learning, I would lose valuable interaction with my peers without my high school. The problems I encounter with people and teachers enable me to handle experiences that I might face in the world after school.
As a senior in high school, I feel that I am in a few classes that do not prepare me for life in any way. A lot of my classes teach such advanced level theories that I cannot learn the simple things that might benefit my life in the future. I feel more students should be allowed cooperative education to teach real world job situations and how to use school knowledge to benefit results. Many fellow students do not, however, take coop because they are not ready to specialize in a field. Coops deny the chance of taking several classes that allow college entrance. In my school, you either prepare for college, or you take coop and prepare for a manual labor career. There is no way to do both, so both sets of students lose either education or job experience.
Young teens today need adults to take an interest in their lives. Too many times adults write kids off as being irresponsible and achieving and believe they are only trouble. The lack of communication between generations builds misconceptions about behavior on both sides. If mentors were assigned to adolescents, many adults and kids would realize how similar they are too each other. Distrust by adults of children would diminish if they knew how being a kid really was in today’s world. The American society needs old-fashioned communication to bridge the generation gap.