> Students transition from caring what their authority figures think (teachers/parents) to caring what their peers think (friends). This leads to a degradation

> Students transition from caring what their authority figures think (teachers/parents) to caring what their peers think (friends). This leads to a degradation in class morale, unity, and overall drive and focus. I remember this shift clearly. And I felt a lot more unity and focus afterwards than before, it's just that as a teacher, I would've been focused on unifying against you. Beforehand there was a subtle sense of pride that I usually got straight A's and made my parents proud. Afterward I felt like I had had it wrong the whole time: It's not me vs you according to whatever metrics the authorities choose, comrade. It's you and me against the status quo. We must specialize in wherever the authorities are weak and exploit that to the hilt. As it turned out, the authorities were confused by their technology, so the clear path forward was for us all to become hackers--or so it seemed at the time. And so, twenty years later, all my male friends have mediocre academic records and decent salaries, while the girls (regrettably) have it the other way. I don't know if my path is as open to thirteen year old boys today. We launched our games from a dos prompt, opportunity for exploration beckoned at every keystroke. Nowadays everything is part of a platform, you have to go out of your way to find opportunities to tinker. It's all so constrained. As I see it, I lucked into a growth mindset that was compatible with my pubescent priority realignment (towards my friends and against authority). Do you think that the modern world offers similar opportunities that I'm just not seeing? If not, should we design for them?