Students are Unhappy, Insecure and Unable To Stand Up For Themselves
The past few months have been full of the media covering young people publicly displaying outrage for stupid reasons. There is nothing the media loves to do more than force irrelvant bullshit down our throats that results in OUTRAGE!
This Tumblr exsits exclusively for editorial comments that are outside of professional life and purely exist as an opinion. This is an opinion I've grown to have over the past few years and it continues to cement itself as truthful as time goes on. I hae no real solution, but the fact that my opinion is apparently so controversial, it's a good sign that even the perfect solution would be moot as many are not intellectually/socially prepared for the debate itself.
"It’s so hard for kids growing up nowadays.”
That is something I hear from so many people my age and older, it’s a quote I agree with, but what I don’t agree with is what seems to follow that quote in 99% of the instances in which It is said. My reasoning for believing that it’s so difficult for kids has nothing to do with crime, violence, peer pressure or much of the nonsense you hear parents whine about on poorly produced local TV news pieces. My reasoning is that both society and easily influenced parents have lost all ability to think for themselves, which leaves them to almost exclusively trust other’s advice when making parental decisions.
How often does everyone see a news piece about some parent getting arrested for letting their kids play outside alone or travel to a store alone? My favorite example is this one from July of 2015, where an 11 year old played in the backyard alone for 90 minutes and the parents were charged with neglect.
If anyone wonders why college kids are being such pussies and words/phrases like “cisgender”, “microaggression”, “Trigger Warning” and “Safe Space” have entered our lexicon, it’s not because of the whole everybody gets a trophy mentality, it’s because society continues to treat kids like morons and so many aren’t able to put the pieces together. This isn’t just parenting, it’s just as much the fault of the relevant government agencies, media and schools.
I’ve often said that if I ever have children (which I most likely won’t), I would never send them to a traditional school and would most likely pursue something similar to unschooling, but with a tiny bit more structure. I’ve explained this at length in previous posts.
What I did want to share some of the things that both school rules are instilling in young people.
Some statistics and basic information:
- According to this, 23% of public & private schools mandate uniforms, which means 23% of schools are saying that kids aren’t responsible enough decision-makers to choose what to put on their bodies.
- Roughly 25% of male students have been in a fight within the past year according to this. Consider that with the fact that 79% of schools have a zero-tolerance policy towards violence school (essentially meaning you fight, you get kicked out, even if there was no weapon involved and it was a one-on-one fight).
- The same zero-tolerance policies that were created for drug, alcohol and smoking along with weapons-based violence have been used to punish schoolchildren for tardiness, uniform violations, “disruptive behavior”, “insubordination” and apparently even singing.
- The average student does 3.1 hours of homework a night, with 56% of students saying it’s a primary cause of stress in their lives (here for more).
A few weeks ago I was visiting Detroit to speak at my college (such a cool honor) when I had the chance to get dinner with some of my family, including my high school aged cousin who we will call $M% because she’s really smart and will be making (M)oney up the ass when she gets older (also $M$ is 16). She was telling me how much she hates memorizing useless information in school and that it stresses her out and no one has given her a good reason why she needs to do this (I’m paraphrasing here, but this was pretty much her point). Her mom was dining with us, so I couldn’t give her my honest answer but I wanted to sugar-coat the honest answer enough so that I could properly respond.
My response was that I agreed it was useless, and after high school life gets much better, so it’s super important she never loses the part of her that questions bullshit like this, because it will be invaluable in the future.
I’m sure that answer is one that many educators hate, if you are one of the educators who would hate that response I want to say that you are part of the problem and that you are actively telling kids to not think critically when presented with a task. You either fall on the side of educators who are too beaten down and worn out to fight the good fight, or you actually believe the goal of complete conformity and eliminating those who question authority when it appears that the authority isn’t valid. Kids go into the system wide-eyed with sponge-like brains, then they are told what to wear, how to think and what to study.
The part of this that bothers me the most is that this process has been unchanged for decades.... The flaws and obvious problems go either ignored or those in power realize that those flaws remaining unchanged is what allows them to stay in power. Here’s a song from John Lennon that was written 45 years ago, the lyrics show how little has changed.
Back to $M$, she’s quite brilliant and I wish both that she was 18 and that I was in a more self-sufficient position in my career because I would love to hire her to help me in marketing decentralized tech projects. Whatever path she chooses, I’m so confident she is going to crush it and be a massive success. This predicted success will have very little to do with her formal education, it will be in spite of that.
$M$ isn’t the type that concerns me. It’s the majority of kids who have no passion, few interests and even less drive by the time an institution sucks it all out of them. These are also the ones who are most likely to not have anyone around them to help them pursue whatever interest they may have, so their interest lies dormant and they end up being less happy than they should be.
There are people who are well-suited to the public schooling system, they are the same people who enjoy doing what they are told and are happy with this, they have no desire to ever be radical in any way and that is absolutely fine. The system exists for them, it’s the ones who fall through the cracks. The ones who maybe can’t find anything to relate to because their classmates and teachers share a different ethnic background, or the kids who are brilliant but lack interest in anything that is taught in the classes they can take.
The most sad are the ones who have aggression issues and get into fights....they are kicked out after one fight. An entire institution consisting of both kids AND GROWN UPS tell a kid that he isn’t welcome in that environment anymore because one mistake the kid made.
If that isn’t bullying, then I don’t know what is
Oh and this doesn’t even touch that kids are still required to be in school during farmers hours, have an additional 3 to 4 hours of homework that mostly consists of mindlessly filling out worksheets and that all of this work is for a high school diploma which most view as “useless” without also getting a 4-year college degree. I wish more kids would realize how they are being scammed and fight back, but the passion just seems sucked out of so many of them :(
“School Pushout Problem” Fact Sheet - Great for distribution to other parents, teachers or anyone who is concerned about the toxicity of the modern schooling system. (here)
“Unschooling Subreddit” - A place to discuss unschooling with minimal participation of the religious fundie crazies that frequent the homeschooling forums. If you are skeptical of public schooling but aren’t in a cult, this is a great place to start. (here)
“Youth Rights Subreddit” - Tons of kids face much bigger problems than public schools, one being the recognition of their rights, here’s a great place to talk about it. (here)
“Troubled Teen Subreddit” - Some of the saddest stories I’ve heard have been from kids who get locked up in these for-profit kiddie prisons for minor things like coming out as gay, declaring atheism or even minor school infractions. This is so incredibly fucked up and it’s something that most outlets don’t cover, please subscribe to this and help to get these evil places shut down! (here)
