if youre a teacher, you should be telling students...

POV: mister Devon Price, PhD, telling me that I am right about everything

Interesting perception.

I was often called creative, or bad at following instructions depending on the teacher as a child. I hated being told how to have fun or how to express myself. As a result, a lot of things most kids enjoyed, like sports, camp, or after school activities often were very frustrating for me. I felt really lonely since I felt like everyone was enjoying things I didn’t have words for why I only liked it when I was alone, meaning I wasn’t being told how to do it. I know countless people who loved reading until their school ruined it for them, same with music, sports or art. This is exaggerated in special Ed kids too, we are made to FEAR reading. They use tactics like humiliation as a “motivator” to try and force us out of a learning disorder (spoiler alert all it does is traumatize neurodivergent kids on a massive scale to the point of people being unsure what is trauma and what is neuedivergence)

A lot of teachers will go on about not using wikipedia as a source.

“It’s bad,” they say. “I will deduct points if you do it.”

Well wikipedia is actually a great source of information and fuck what your teacher said, you absolutely can use it.

The key though is knowing

A.How to use it.

B. How to source it.

and

C. whether it is good info or trash.

NowFirst Lets look up something on wikipedia. Say your writing a paper on Gregor Mendel and Mendelian Inheritance.

So you zoom over to the Wikipedia page on Mendelian Inheritance.

Now there is a lot of information here. Not all of it is strictly necessary for that essay you are writing. So you read through and suddenly you see something that is good info for your essay.

Boy oh boy this information is useful. To bad your teacher said No Wikipedia Ever.

However there is a loophole.

It’s right there.

No. Go closer.

You see that little four? Its a citation number. Think of wikipedia as it’s own essay. It got it’s information from other sources out there. Just like you are trying to right now. And since there is a citation, it’s going to be listed at the end of the wikipedia article.

Look at citation number 4

Look at that you have your first citation. From Wikipedia.

And look. Do you see it. There is a link. It’s the blue words with the boxy arrow thingamajig.

That thing. Click it.

Why did you leave wikipedia you ask? Wikipedia is great. You have several sources from there. But There is more than what the put in to that wiki article. Those sources Wikipedia gave you are helpful. And now that you are at the source, you can utilize it.

But what if its a book that’s the source.

You can either head to your local library and see if they have it, order it, or avoid the book source. Online sources are just as valuable.

Also do not quote directly from the wikipedia. Quote from the source and then use quote citation.

And MLA citation. Use MLA citation. Since you are linked to the sources cite them. Not the wikipedia.

Your teacher will never know. And now you can finish that sweet essay you got planned.

op is absolutely right. this is coming from someone who researches and teaches on age and society professionally. modern western society is age-segregated to an unprecedented degree and there is ample evidence that it is absolutely fucking us over. it’s linked to everything from economic hardship to mental health crises.

intergenerational friendships are important. adults who never interact with young people outside of a defined institutional relationship with a built-in power imbalance (like being a parent or teacher) don’t develop the capacity to treat young people as equals, which reinforces patterns of abuse, neglect, social disempowerment, and silencing. young people who lack meaningful connections with adults outside of those same institutions miss out on an incredible source of support and guidance. and everyone misses out on the basic human joy of friendships that could have been really meaningful if we didn’t have this weird, broken ideology that says young people have nothing interesting to say, and no value to adults who don’t either want to raise them or exploit them or both.

like, sure, with any relationship between a minor and an adult, the adult has a responsibility that the minor doesn’t. some shit only comes from life experience. but like… that teen who comes to dnd on fridays, the younger coworker, that person met through fandom? i’m not gonna pretend we’re not friends just because i’m older than they are.

Intergenerational friendships are like??? So varied?????

Like maybe you’re 16 and working your first job, and you have an old Chinese man as a regular who sits at a table and reads the Chinese newspaper his family mails him, and you start sitting down and talking to him when it’s slow. And he tells you all about the life he’s lived, of being a child in the aftermath of world war two. And he talks to you about the prejudice he’s seen, and the way he sees people treat each other, and how much things have changed. And you learn a lot.

Or you meet a 30-something mother of two that walks with a cane in a group therapy session, and when you speak to her she opens up about her struggles with drugs, and how she wishes to stay better so she can be there for her kids. And she teaches you about having a more open mind when it comes to religious beliefs when you’re an edgy atheist teen.

Or you’re very isolated in your hobbies, and you meet a group of college students that share your interests and are fine letting you join in on their card games and D&D, and you not only learn the games but you get used to a group that’s accepting and just wants to have fun and make everyone comfy, and you learn not every group of people has to be judgemental and scary.

You’re saying that instead of making teens aware of the signs of toxic relationships, and keeping an open line of communication so we can help them take notice of and avoid these things… You’d rather we lock teens in a box where they’re deprived of the positives?

Force so many teens to be around peers that bully and disregard them, when they have prospective friends in local clubs and support groups that just aren’t necessarily in their peer group?

Hardcore Tumblr users really are just puritans huh? Hell even historically, households were made of many generations, and kids helped out in the community and met the adults that kept it going.

Years later we still get updates on her life, and a bunch of those people went to see her perform on stage six years later when she got the lead role in her college(!!!) production of She Kills Monsters.

I got really close to an adult volunteer with a queer youth group in high school, and she took me in like an odd, overenthusiastic niece. I did have a crush on her a little, but it was the sort of thing that teaches you what you like in a person without meaning anything more than that. She and her wife loaned me a pile of lesbian books to read, taught me to cook, and helped me learn to drive. They were like family. 

My grandmother’s friends, who I’ve known all my life, are also my friends. One of them is in the last year of her life now, and as sad as I am to lose her, I’m so grateful to have known her, to have been friends with her as close as she and my grandmother were. I’m also grateful my grandmother and I can share this grief and joy.

I did see it (because of you!) and I agree completely.

I didn’t meet my friend Nate when I was a minor, but I was a 20 year old gay college student and he was a man in his mid-30s who had just become the director of our campus’ LGBT student services office. both adults, but still a high potential for a power differential, especially since I worked under him as an intern the summer after we met.

instead of being a dirtbag boss he just became a great friend and source of support during one of the weirdest, loneliest years of my life, and also introduced to me to his then-girlfriend (now wife!) who also became an excellent friend. he’s encouraged me to take risks and go beyond my comfort zone in regards to my sex ed work and research and helped me find incredible career opportunities since I’ve graduate. he and his wife have had me over on holidays I would have otherwise spent alone, kept me fed when I couldn’t, and once made an emergency supply run to bring me soup and medicine when I was languishing alone with a flu that I thought was going to straight up kill me. I’ve babysat for their cats so many times that I now have a key to their house, was one of the only witnesses for their wedding, and helped out after Nate’s top surgery by driving him around when he couldn’t safely do it himself.

and on top of all the helping each other out, we’re just friends. we’re buds. I remind him constantly that he was already in high school by the time I was born, but that in no way stops us from hanging. we share a lot of meals. I’ve spent a lot of time just sitting in the couch in Nate’s home office, and he used to hang on laying on my living room floor while I played d&d with his wife. we’ve gone to movies, concerts, and academic conferences together. we’ve shared a hotel room - hell, we’ve shared a hotel bed.

and there’s not a thing about it that’s weird or predatory or uncomfortable, because he’s a jackass but he’s not that kind of jackass. it’s absolutely possible to hang with people a decade or more younger than yourself and not be weird about it, and I honestly would have benefitted tremendously from having an older queer person looking out for me and offering me any kind of support or guidance when I was a teenager. not even because I didn’t have support or guidance at home - I’m very privileged, and I know that, to have a mom who’s never done anything but unconditionally support me and provide for me as well as she can - but because young people benefit from having a wide variety of adults who know and care about them. the more the better, especially if those youth are in more vulnerable situations than I was as a teen.

the biggest elephant in the room that applies to just about every country tumblr users on this site are from: the fact that the education system in most, if not all countries, set children, especially those of marginalized status, up for failure, and leave countless of children with trauma that lasts for their entire lifetime

The child naively believes that everything should be fair and everyone should be honest, that only good should prevail, that everybody should have what they want and there should be no pain or sadness. The child believes the world should be perfect and is outraged to discover it is not.

And the child is right.”

Except that’s not it at all. 

When someone uses a slur that can be directed at you it’s terrifying. There’s a moment of “oh god, am I safe?”. To be part of an oppressed group is to know that there are people out there who can and will hurt you. And when someone uses a slur you are suddenly confronted with the very real possibility that they are one of those people. And you have to ask yourself “am I safe?”. 

Black is not a dirty word.

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from an eating perspective, it’s just as bad. say a middle or high schooler eats breakfast (if they even eat breakfast) at 7am, then doesn’t eat lunch until 11-12 (and lunch is often inadequate), then has after-school activities, etc. and may not get home until late afternoon, or eat dinner until evening. and kids in school are not generally allowed to snack in class or given time to snack between classes. these gaps between eating times are way too big for adolescents! they need a lot of food–more than adults–to support the growth process, just as they need more sleep.

like, sometimes I’d go “fuck I can’t make it to class on time” and so just… skip. Or I’d go “can I finish this by the deadline? I don’t think I can. Might as well not do it at all.”