http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/nurtureshock/archive/2009/11/05/why-teenagers-are-growing-up-so-slowly-today.aspx?obref=obnetwork
"Basically, we long ago decided that teens ought to be in school, not in the labor force. Education was their future. But the structure of schools is endlessly repetitive. “From a Martian’s perspective, high schools look virtually the same as sixth grade,” said Allen. “There’s no recognition, in the structure of school, that these are very different people with different capabilities.” Strapped to desks for 13+ years, school becomes both incredibly montonous, artificial, and cookie-cutter.
As Allen writes, “We place kids in schools together with hundreds, sometimes thousands, of other kids typically from similar economic and cultural backgrounds. We group them all within a year or so of one another in age. We equip them with similar gadgets, expose them to the same TV shows, lessons, and sports. We ask them all to take almost the exact same courses and do the exact same work and be graded relative to one another. We give them only a handful of ways in which they can meaningfully demonstrate their competencies. And then we’re surprised they have some difficulty establishing a sense of their own individuality.” "
And
"Without painful real-life experiences, modern teens’ brains never learn to tell the difference between what they should fear and what they shouldn’t. Without real consequences and real rewards, teens never learn to distinguish between good risks they should take and bad risks they shouldn’t."
As well as
"As for the risk behavior we associate with adolescence, Allen cautions that “We don’t give teens enough ways to take risks that are productive.” So they turn to drinking, drug use, delinquency, and the like – because those are the only things thrilling. “According to Allen, teens aren't naturally passive – their environment makes them passive. We’re writing them off at exactly the time we need to bring out their potential."
Wow, it's almost as if coddling children makes them worse off! Like, as if somehow if given their own incentives and opportunities to excel, as opposed to drilling pointless shit into their skulls repetitively ad nauseum for the entirety of the life they can remember, they are less angry and driven to fuck over the system. Huh. Who woulda thought?
You know, parents always get on kids nowadays about how we don't have "perspective." Kids don't understand the long-term. I think the exact same applies to parents. They, too, have no perspective. The entirety of a child's existence until they get out of high school IS THE EXACT BLOODY SAME. Every single bloody year, it's monotony, mediocrity, and stupidity. And then parents wonder why kids lack the motivation to continue on their education and instead decide to do drugs/drink/fuck. Kids don't know anything else. Hell, I don't really know anything else. My life has been one continuous experience of school. I don't know anything about the real world. And if my bitter, vitriolic, hate-filled rantings are any indication, I'm sick of it. And life-in-fucking-general.
So yes, I lack perspective. Because the crippling, repetitive system of constant 8-class bombardment (now 5-class bombardment which I can plan around my scheduling desires, which is a step up) ensures my imagination and desire to do anything meaningful in life is crushed. I consider myself lucky that I broke out of my own mold the way I did, because it's one of the few ways I can stay sane and live as an independent thinker with decent ambition. How is not really anything I intend to discuss here, because this isn't the time or the place. Suffice to say, I got lucky. I've seen kids who were damn smart give up because there's no reason to think any year will be any different than any other. Keep telling us there's hope at the end of the tunnel, and year after year it amounts to the same. We're told to worry about Middle School, that if we get good grades for the entirety of our Middle School years we'll be rewarded. And during High School, the same thing happens. We're told that if we get good grades, we'll be rewarded. And we get to college. And the same thing happens. I'll admit that at least after high school it's a question of which college you're going to get into, but even then it's a continuation of the same lifestyle. How's that for perspective? Over 20 years of repetition with no reward in sight.
I'd love to tie this into my own ideas of the importance of survival and struggle in one's life, but that one's biased. It probably also only applies to me as far as I know. I hate living in bland comfort. I love fighting, struggle, and conflict, which is probably why I'm so drawn to politics, and why I'm so argumentative. I don't like being comfortable. But being beaten to death by a stone slab across my skull (read: school work) is not my idea of survival. It's about monotony, about setting aside the time to do this shit. College isn't hard. It takes more time than previously, but there's no inherent skill or risk-taking. There's no chance that you won't succeed as long as you beat your head against it long enough. At least for now. Who knows, maybe in the near future some class will completely kick my ass and I'll be fighting tooth-and-nail to maintain a C. That'll probably be the year I have to take math again. And I kinda look forward to it.
Until then, though, my life will continue to be that same drab gray it's always been, and probably always will be. Especially since thanks to my current predicament, escapism is a bit more...difficult. So I'm kind of stuck. But that's life I guess. Maybe some day something challenging will come across my way.
And in other news, domestic terrorism!
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/declassified/archive/2010/04/13/ex-marine-provided-hutaree-hit-list-of-judges-and-elected-officials-and-served-as-group-s-heavy-gunner.aspx?obref=obnetwork
And who might these Hutaree folks be?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts1361
http://www.hutaree.com/About%20Us.html
Hmmm. I'm not really sure what there is left to say. It sort of speaks for itself. Sadly, I'm burnt out on hypocrisy to actually want to even discuss this in a decent, rational manner. The extent of my involvement is me publicly admitting I hope they all simultaneously burst into flames and die.
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