Rockridge High School
Teacher: Barbara Downey
Is It Time For Local Communities To
Initiate A Rite
Of Passage For American Youth?
By Kristina Whitney
Grade 12
For as long as schools have been around, kids have resented having to
be there. These apathetic feelings have been demonstrated in a variety of ways,
some of which are violent. This resentment stems from the fact that school bears no
resemblance to the real world; it does not teach them how to live.
I believe it is time for local communities to initiate a rite of
passage for American youth in the area of education. By the time a person is a senior in
high school, he has spent thirteen years going to school. However, many people at
this age have no idea what they want to do with their lives after graduation. Most
will say that they want to go to college, but as to what they will major in? They
have no clue. The rest do not care about their future, or they think that they can have a
better future going straight to a good-paying job that requires no thinking.
The majority of America’s teens view school as a place that they
are required to be, not somewhere that they would willingly go to be educated in an
entertaining way. School is a boring place because the students are not learning
about things they are interested in. They spend all day sitting in classrooms
learning about synthetic division, sentence structures, and chemical equations.
Sure, some kids enjoy this, but many do not. Even for the students who do like it,
nine months of the same sorts of things gets old. None of this bears any resemblance
whatsoever to real life! Students describe school as a “basically chaotic”
place in which learning is nearly impossible, as a prison because it does not “teach
you how to live”, and as an “unfriendly environment that shapes its inhabitants
in twisted, nonproductive ways”.
As of now there are a few successes in helping to make education more
interesting to adolescents. The first of these successes is students being allowed
to take vocational classes. Here, students from one area all gather at one of the
larger high schools in that area and take vocational classes that they are interested
in. For someone who is interested in becoming a carpenter, taking carpentry classes
would be much more useful than taking a course in United States history.
Something related to vocational classes is the option to take a co-op
class. In co-op students take a class in the morning that teaches workplace skills,
and then they go to an actual workplace in the afternoon. This is an excellent way
for the students to get first-hand experience in dealing with situations that arise in the
workplace.
Another area of success is found in job-shadowing. Students,
usually juniors, get to pick a career area in which they are interested. They are
then paired with a local person in this profession. The students then follow this
person around during a regular work day. This first-hand experience allows the
students to determine whether or not a career in this area would continue to intrigue
them. These three things, vocational and co-op classes, and job-shadowing, are the
beginning of a long process to change the education curriculum, but this process needs to
take the next level now. A way to begin this could be to start job-shadowing as
early as junior high. This way, the students would have three or four more years to
gain experiences in the real, working world. They would be exposed to a larger variety of
careers; this would help them to be better prepared to decide what to do after graduation.
I also believe that high school students need to have more of a say
in determining the classes that they take and even the classes that are offered at their
schools. During each school year the students could be given a survey which would
identify the classes that they would be interested in taking. A committee of
students could then confer with a group of teachers, administrators, and community members
to decide which classes should be kept, abolished, or created. I believe that
students should be required to take a least two years of English and math, but I also
believe that they should not be forced to take classes such as physical education or any
classes that will never help them. More elective courses could then be taken in
place of these classes.
This joint committee would not only examine the classes offered at
the school, but would also look at local problems within the community. One such
problem may be that there is a retirement or nursing home in which many of the residents
are feel very lonely and secluded. In order to abolish some of these feelings, a
group of students could leave school for an hour a day and visit with the residents of the
retirement or nursing home. This would not only allow the residents to get over
their feelings of seclusion, but it would also help the students to have someone to talk
to. The older people could offer advice to the teenagers about the future.
This would also be helpful to students who are interested in a career in caring for the
elderly.
We have all seen or know about the apathetic views that adolescents
have for school education. Something needs to be done about this; the educational
curriculum needs to be drastically changed so that students are learning something about
the real world.
Questions - Rite of Passage
1) In the beginning of her 1961 preface to Coming of Age in Samoa, Margaret Mead
observes that American teenagers are becoming less than they could be. This is caused,
however, because adults who are important in the lives of children, such as teachers and
young adults who will soon be parents, do not understand how important culture is in
determining individual success or defeat. This is reminiscent of a current Army
recruiting commercial with the “Be All You Can Be!” theme.
2) I believe that the issues of the 1920’s (the importance of language spoken
in the home, familial pressures on children, misconceptions about race and color, and the
effects of artificially separating children from a knowledge of birth, love, and death)
are not as much of issues today as they were then, but they are still issues. I
think that people of the 1920’s believed that these things would not remain as issues
as long as they have, but America’s multi-cultural diversity demands that these
issues remain.
3) culture: the acquired ability of an individual or a people to recognize
generally accepted esthetic and intellectual excellence. I agree with Margaret Mead’s
statement that “culture is man-made and that man is free to design it closer to the
desires of his own heart”. The evolution of culture is dependent upon the
people. In order for culture to develop the people need to acquire the ability to
recognize artistic and intellectual greatness. Culture will only develop as far as
man pushes himself to acquire these abilities.
4) In her writings Margaret Mead was advocating a greater knowledge and control over
the civilizing process. She did not want American society to return to a primitive,
Samoan-like society. She wanted to be able to live in New York, but still be able to
be surrounded by a “natural and delightful” society. Her example of this
was that if she were dying of a disease, she would love to return to Samoa and spend her
last days surrounded by a “people who would accord me unquestioning and unintense
friendliness, a people who were equally accustomed to birth and death, youth and
age”. If we possessed a greater knowledge over the civilizing process, we could
become civilized while still retaining these natural and delightful traits.
5) I believe that most teenagers, despite what adults may think, really do want
adults to recognize what is going on and do something about it. If adults enforce
“boundaries and structure”, I think many of the problems teenagers encounter
would fade away. The adults need to enforce these things in areas such as schools,
but they do not, however, need to go too far with it. They need to let teenagers
have a little freedom and experience in the “real world”; if teenagers
aren’t allowed this, the problems will not fade away but get even worse.
6) I have “absolutely, positively” seen students come
to school or school functions drunk and high on alcohol and drugs. I have seen
people dip at school, during classes, also. I know one guy who comes to school
wearing a vest. In two of the inside pockets he stashes cigarettes, and he hides a
flask of alcohol in the other pocket.
7) The black teenager should try to better himself in the eyes of white people; this
is probably the only way that many whites will ever trust him. However, in doing this he
is not being true to himself. I believe that he should not have to come up
with a solution. Nothing makes white people better than blacks or anyone else; no
one should have to prove him- or herself to anyone else.
8) I do not think I would be satisfied if all I had to do was “go to classes
and learn”; it would not teach me anything about the real world. I also
would not like being home-schooled, because if you are home-schooled, you only learn what
your parents believe. You are not exposed to any other ideas. I would not like
going to a single-sex private school either. I believe most guys are more out-going
that girls are, and they bring excitement to classrooms. I like being able to talk
to everyone, not just girls, in between classes.
9) I agree with Pete Seeger’s comment that “Schools are like prisons
because they don’t teach you how to live”, and I also agree with Jonathan’s
statement that “People in school are dulled by the remoteness to the real
world”. I think that tech-prep and co-op classes are good examples of classes
that incorporate community-based learning into high school. These classes teach more
of the real world than just sitting in a classroom learning facts does. In these
sorts of classes the students are able to learn about things they are actually interested
in. The classes help expose students to different atmospheres and this helps the
kids to choose a career path to follow.
10) I agree with the “bottom line”. I believe that all adolescents,
not just the “’deprived’ children of the inner city” need a mentor, a
grown-up with whom they can sit and talk. Without a link from generation to
generation, kids will only hear from their peers. I also agree with the statement
that “Young adolescents do not want to be left to their own devices”. I
think they want an adult there to listen to them, to help them with their problems, and
offer suggestions and possible solutions.