Abandonment is an issue that is facing the youth of today. First, the term adolescence is not that old. In the past you went from childhood into adulthood with maybe a short transition period in between. Since we have started to recognize adolescence phase in someone’s life there have been more people attending high school and getting an education, which is great. However, there has also been an increase on abandonment done by adults to adolescents. Parents think that the youth is at fault while the youth thinks that the parents are at fault. Chap Clark author of Hurt delves down into the adolescence world to find out who is actually at fault. Clark and many others would agree with the adolescents and say that the parent or adult is at fault. …show more content…
Over the years the view of this has changed. Now, majority of programs want to have the best of the best and don’t even bother paying attention to those who aren’t as talented. Clark says that children, even from a very young age, learn that some are pretty and special and talented, while others are not. Children learn that they are only as valuable as their ability to contribute. Organizations such as sports or dance are no longer a safe place where children can express themselves or explore their possible potential talent, or develop an appreciation for the activity. When youth reach mid-adolescence they will show rejection that they have been subjected to throughout their lives. A community leader of a sport team told Clark “They have to learn this lesson sometime-that they either are or aren’t an athlete. It is better to find out when they are young”. Clark them brought up a point of who is it better for? He has a point, telling children that they aren’t good at something at a young age crushes their dreams of maybe playing professional basketball, or of getting on the dance team in high school. When children are told that they are bad at something starting at a young age, that comment will stay with them and it eat at them and they will think that …show more content…
When Clark was observing at a high school he was talking to a teacher who was making substitute lesson plans and she was saying that in her morning class there are three or so “good” students and in her afternoon class is filled with the “average” students. She either never considered or stopped caring about what kind of background these students came from. Some youth try to rise to the top quickly while others learn to cope with abandonment. Whether an adolescent is on top or not they will be recognized for what they do. However, underneath the surface, even with those who are on top, have a fear that they will be found out and will lose everything. A senior male told Clark “I have to get the grades and play sports. I have nothing else”. Institutions no longer have their primary focus on the youth’s welfare and development, instead they have focused on the institutional competitiveness. When an adolescent is hurt and abandoned so badly, they create the clusters and go to the ‘world beneath’. The world beneath has its own rules about relating, moral code and defensive strategies. It’s a world where youth can be themselves and come together. Adolescents will act differently in the world beneath than in the world above, because the world above is for the adults and the youth are there to just be a part of it but never fully be there because they have
Because the education system does not relate classwork or homework to the lives of students, they do not see how writing essays or solving math problems can help them in everyday life. “By the time Roadville children reach high school they write off school as having nothing to do with what they want in life, and they fear that school success will threaten their social relations with people whose company they value. This is a familiar refrain for working class children” (Attitude 119). As students begin to realize how low their potential is within school, they chose to cut school out of their life and start working. These students do not understand how they can benefit from what they are learning. “One woman talks of the importance of a ‘fitting education’ for her three children so they can ‘do better’, but looks on equanimity as her sixteen-year-old son quits school, goes to work in a garage, and plans to marry his fifteen-year-old girlfriend ‘soon’” (Attitude 118). Students are settling for less than what they can actually achieve to have, just because they see no purpose of being in school, and believe they can do better without the help of the education system. Even parents are not actually supporting and encouraging their child to stay in school. “Although Roadville parents talk about the value of school, they often act as if they don’t believe it”
As Pollock states, “Equity efforts treat all young people as equally and infinitely valuable” (202). This book has made me realize that first and foremost: We must get to know each of our students on a personal level. Every student has been shaped by their own personal life experiences. We must take this into consideration for all situations. In life, I have learned that there is a reason why people act the way that they do. When people seem to have a “chip on their shoulder”, they have usually faced many hardships in life. “The goal of all such questions is deeper learning about real, respected lives: to encourage educators to learn more about (and build on) young people’s experiences in various communities, to consider their own such experiences, to avoid any premature assumptions about a young person’s “cultural practices,” and to consider their own reactions to young people as extremely consequential.” (3995) was also another excerpt from the book that was extremely powerful for me. Everyone wants to be heard and understood. I feel that I owe it to each of my students to know their stories and help them navigate through the hard times. On the other hand, even though a student seems like he/she has it all together, I shouldn’t just assume that they do. I must be sure that these students are receiving the attention and tools needed to succeed,
Leon Botstein, the author of “Let Teenagers Try Adulthood,” serves as the president of Bard College, as well as a professor of arts and humanities. Botstein wrote this article after the tragic shootings at Columbine high school in 1999. This event triggered something inside Botstein causing him to think negatively about the American high school system. In the article “Let Teenagers Try Adulthood,” Botstein explains, in his own words, of the corrupt happenings of present day American high school (368-369). Although Botstein may have high credentials, he provides no evidence to support his negative claims and opinions about teenagers and American high schools.
When in fact the high school outsiders become the more successful and admired adults in society. Botstein. states that team sports in high school dominate more than student culture.... ... middle of paper ... ...
Robbins spends the majority of the book discussing and proving this theory. Due to all her evidence and extensive research, Robbins is able to prove why this theory is important. Not only is the book a safe haven for the “kids who are typically not considered part of the in crowd, the ones who are excluded” (6), but it serves as a guide to stop people from taking “mental shortcuts by clustering people together, making assumptions, and forming stereotypes to shrink our social world into a grid that’s easier to process” (42). She acknowledges these issues, and takes everything two steps further, delving into the minds of these young people, analyzing their problems, living through their issues. A big issue that Robbins discovered is that “young people are trying frantically to force themselves into an unbending mold of expectations, convinced that they live in a two-tiered system in which they are either a resounding success or they have already failed” (6). What they fail to realize, and Robbins is determined to share, is that it is possible for them to be successful, even if they feel like failures at school. Robbins chose her target audience wisely, knowing that something in the book would apply to them. However, this theory can be applied on an even bigger scale as well. Young people are the future of the nation, of this world, and hold the ability the create a better tomorrow. Their innovation and individuality allow them to speak out from the majority, to invent new things, to conjure up new concepts and theories. This theory was meant to be essential to not only young people but to the world, “which is why we must celebrate [the cafeteria fringe]”
Somewhere in America a parent is asking their child what they learned at school today, the child will most likely say that they didn’t learn much. It is sad to say that with today’s education system, this is true. The K-12 school system has oppressed students far more than it has liberated them, and this must change if America wants to produce members of society that actually have something to contribute. Students graduate high school having learned how to play the “game” of school leaving them grossly unprepared for college. Students should leave high school with a base of knowledge and strategies they can employ to succeed in college if that is where they wish to go, but instead they come to college knowing how to line up quietly and copy
Growing up is a current issue nowadays with children and teenagers seeming to enter the adult world at an earlier age thus having to take on the responsibilities of adults. When does a child become an adult? For many the right answer is that it has nothing to do with age, it is determined by the behavior. In this essay I will not go into the issue of when a child turns into an adult but rather think about how the issue is treated in ? The Outsiders?
Society pushes today's youth towards higher education. The goal of grade school is to prepare the students for middle school. The goal of middle school is to prepare the students for high school. And finally the goal of high school is to prepare the students for college. The entire structure of education is to prepare youth for the next level of education. The problem with this system is that not all students are college material, as seen in the essay The Case Against College by Caroline Bird.
“Fremont High School” an essay written by Jonathan Kozol presents a high school in need of transformation and support with educational advancement. Kozol writes about the limited educational opportunities available to the students that attend this lower class institution. Kozol addresses the overcrowding of this institution and lack of consistent staffing. The purpose of Kozol 's essay is to illustrate that lack of opportunity based on social class is an active crisis in the United States educational system, whereas addressing this crisis in the essay, Kozol would hope to achieve equal opportunities available to all socioeconomic class institutions.
Abandonment is something no child should have to go through. What does an abandon person feel like? It makes a person feel like they are the only ones in the whole entire world. They feel alone, angry, frustrated, and scared. That contradiction between what they experience inside and what is reflected back to them from the outside must be resolved (Blecher). Adoption offers
George F. Will’s “College President’s Plan: Abolish High School” conveys ideas that had never crossed my mind. He states, “For various reasons, some rooted in American history and others reflecting recent developments, education has become, for the moment, the most salient social concern and therefore the most potent political issue.” Will introduces Leon Botstein, who doesn’t actually option to abolish high school, just to change the structure of our schools in general. Botstein says that high school was created for 15- to 18-year-olds who were still children. In today’s society, those children are now young adults who are physiologically and psychologically more advanced.
According to statistics gathered by youth sports organizations, “Up to 50 million kids play youth sports in America, and 73 percent who begin playing a sport quit before they turn 13” (Binns). The children could have quit because they did not like the disappointment of losing, or because they are exhausted from their parents pushing them too hard. But parents have their reasons for pushing their children into sports. “Studies show that kids who play sports are less likely to become obese, abuse drugs or alcohol or to perform poorly in school” (McCormick). If children are not active, then they will most likely become overweight, and if they have nothing to do in their pastime, they may turn to drugs and alcohol, which usually leads to a decrease of grades in school. A parent putting his/her child in sports gives the child something to do and keeps them fit. Parents also put their child in a sport hoping that he/she will get success out of it “Eager to nurture the next A-Rod or Michelle Kwan, parents enroll their 5- or 6-year-olds in a competitive sports league or program” (Stenson). While not all parents are pushing for future Olympians, the fight for a sports college scholarship is competitive and parents may feel that their child will have a better chance of gaining one if he/she starts competitive sports early. Parents push their children to succeed, and children--not wanting to disappoint their parents--push themselves, sometimes harder than they should. If done right, pushing a child into sports can have a positive effect on the child’s interaction with other children while teaching them commitment and healthy competition. However, focusing on winning and earning a scholarship versus having fun may backfire, because the cons...
The image also evokes that of the uncomfortable affect a group of peers may cast upon the isolated teen. Will steady doses of rejection and alienation drive the narrator to darker days ahead? He lives with his aunt and uncle, and there is no mention of his real parents. Whether he was abandoned, unwanted, or orphaned remains a mystery. In fact it may be that the narrator simply has no outlet through which to exercise his fragile emotions and thoughts. He has friends, but none to any degree of intimacy, his playful innocence pron...
The term abandonment has the multitude of uses, which can generally be broken into legal, and extra legal uses. Abandonment in law is the relinquishment of an interest, claim, privilege or possession. In the context of juvenile delinquency child abandonment is recognized as a juvenile delinquency, which comes into the category of neglected child. In this case the child is usually not physically harmed directly as part of the abandonment, distinct from this widely recognized crime of
When the rejected teenager reaches the limit of patience and tolerance, he or she lashes out -- rejecting the family, the school, the church, the s...