3 ms·
Teens are living in an isolated socitety from us that can seem like a strange stasi-germany enforced through guilt. Expectations are set for them to perform in
by enord 9y ago
Teens are living in an isolated socitety from us that can seem like a strange stasi-germany enforced through guilt. Expectations are set for them to perform in measures that are unrelated to personal growth and developement, and from a young age. Different parties observe them and intervene on almost any deviation from expectation. The path is narrowing.
Underperform on a standardized school test, intervention. Spend too much time alone, intervention. Spend too much time online, intervention, admonishment. Test social boundaries and get in a fight, intervention, involve police. Can't spend all day in a poorly ventilated room, learning topics you never chose at a pace you can't control, without acting out; now you have to take pills. Skip class to try cigarettes, intervention and maybe CPS. Have you applied for college yet? You know you can't get a job without a degree. Apply yourself. Why are you falling behind? Apply yourself harder. Feel bad. You don't want to be flipping burgers do you? 4 more years without responsibilities, you'll remember them fondly.
Unless you excel academically or possibly athletically you are given nothing to be proud of. Anything else is a concession given in pity and children are made to know it. We make them feel bad for everything they don't master, but we make them keep doing it and we push them along so they're always behind. The only way to get off the merry-go-round is to drop out and flip burgers, but lately that has become a failure. A failure of talent, ambition, skill and - worst of all - character. It's no wonder that tey are risk-averse.
- brad0 9y agoI enjoyed reading this. Have you experienced this directly or noticed this as a third party?
- enord 9y agoSome of it are my own frustrations from first or second hand experience. I'm just young enough that I was a teenager during the later years of the statistic (allthough I probably weighed against the trend except for the driving part). Yet I've had time to teach since I came of age, and talk to people. Most of it though is just empathic (pathetic maybe?) outrage towards what I perceive-- no, feel is a steady devaluation of diversity in people, children in particular. Diversity of experience, of interest, of priorities and values. Diversity of stories. The collective narrative we impose on children is that we're going to give them this great education, they're gonna have such great opportunities ('yuuge opportunities), and we're gonna make extra double sure that that it's the greatest education bestowed on any generation. We'll know it's the greatest education because we're going to test them relentlessly. And they will be grateful. They had better be grateful, and make something from this invaluable opportunity. I'm exaggerating (and sprinkled a little Trump in there) to make it more obviously self-serving, because we are not helping them grow, were growing them. And we're weeding the meadow of anyone and anything that doesn't fit the mold. And I need to get off my soapbox, because I'm rambling.
- brad0 9y agoHave you read Paul Graham's essay on schools? http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html I think you'll find it interesting. Email me at bcurran421@gmail.com if you want to continue the convo