Students who are socially promoted and given all they need in high school are not prepared for the life outside high school. Leon Botstein’s passage titled, “Let Teenagers Try Adulthood,” addresses how teachers socially promote students leading them to be unprepared for the adult world. For example, “The result is that the culture of the inside elite is not contested by the adults in the school. Individuality and dissent are discouraged.” Students who were less popular in high school tend to become more successful out of high school due to the experience of growing pains and the struggle of find oneself early. Most students emotionally mature through the awkward adolescent ages and gain wisdom from the experiences they have had. Students …show more content…
School is a miniature version of society which allows teens to explore what kinds of characteristics will prohibit or inhibit them to excel amongst their classmates and future peers. Socially promoted students tend to stay within their own ranks and center their attention on trivial things such as how good their eye brows look. On the other hand, students who go against the grain of being molded into “social norms” and stand out go unnoticed by fellow students and teachers. They are categorized as untouchable, undetected, and shunned from the lime lights others bask in. Botstein also implies that the socially promoted students “realize what really is at stake in becoming an adult and, too many opportunities have been lost and too much time has been wasted” by the time college registration and high school graduation come. Due to the lavished lifestyle in the spotlight, they forget the role that must be played in the near future. Rather than focusing on further expanding their education, their primary drive is to boost egos, popularity, and being the most remembered person from high school. This results in members of society intellectually and emotionally unprepared for life outside of the high school …show more content…
The instructors should be expected to help assist and confirm the ideas formulated, however, this is not the case in certain situations. In the passage, “Eleven” by Sandra Cisnero, the story is told through the perspective of an 11-year- old whose teacher refuses to listen to her side of the story. In paragraphs 10 through 11, Cisneros is forced to take custody of a red sweater despite it not belonging to her. Entailing that the teacher would rather not deal with finding the true owner and instead throws the responsibility onto Cisneros to handle the burden of the sweater rather than help her. In a personal experience, my fourth grade teacher compared me to the children traveling toward the gold rush in the 1850’s. I remember precisely him saying “Wow, I’m amazed that these kids walk miles and miles a day but some kids like Alexandra can’t even pass the mile.” Rather than being an adult and supporting a student new to the Clovis Unified practices in physical education, who was more so on the chubby side, the idea of making snide comments was a better option than encouragement. “Encouragement” such as this will lead to three paths: self-esteem issues, loss of faith and trust in school and the administrators, or proving to nonbelievers that one can surpass their negativities. In Kyoko Mori’s excerpt, “School,” she illustrates the educational system in Japan and America in addition
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”
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.
The trivialization of high school in the present educational organization for teens has been posited in the public; however, it is one vital issue that is being debated.
Juveniles are being taught that in order to have a nice car, branded cloths and the house of their dreams, by getting into an expensive mortgage, they have to be an employee of a huge corporation. In addition, they have to undergo to a prestigious school, study hard, have excellent grades in order to become popular and respectable in the world. However, many people would not become those super leaders, but these majority of people have a great role in the capitalism society of the US. As Gatto says, “We buy televisions, and then we buy the things we see on the television. We buy computers, and then we buy the things we see on the computer. We buy $150 sneakers whether we need them or not, and when they fall apart too soon we buy another pair” (38). Such results are in part of a wrong education that teenagers have received trough many decades. In addition, Gatto highlights that modern educational system has been working in a six basic functions methods that makes the system strong and unbreakable: The adjustable function, indulge students to respect authorities. The integrating function, which builds the personality of the students as similar to each other as possible. The diagnostic and directive function, which allows a school to set permanent scholar grades in order to determinate his or her future role in society. The differentiating function, which gives to the student a good education and after his or her role is diagnosed, they prevent any educational progress. The selective function, function that the system has used to prevent academic growth for the non-selected students. The propaedeutic function, which works in the selection of specific groups of intellectual adults to keep perpetuating the system all over again making it a continuous sequence. (Gatto 34). Gatto’s facts revealed the survival of the educational system for decades,
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]”
The U.S educational system’s purpose is to control the minds of its students that will be the future leaders of the country. Juveniles are being taught that in order to have a nice car, branded clothes and the house of their dreams, by getting into an expensive mortgage, they have to be an employee of a huge corporation. In addition, they have to undergo to a prestigious school, study hard, have excellent grades in order to become popular and respectable in the world. However, many people would not become those super leaders, but these majorities of people have a great role in the capitalistic society of the US. As Gatto says, “We buy televisions, and then we buy the things we see on the television. We buy computers, and then we buy the things we see on the computer. We buy $150 sneakers whether we need them or not, and when they fall apart too soon we buy another pair” (38).
Making the transition from middle school to high school is a huge stepping stone in a teenager’s life. High school represents both the ending of a childhood and the beginning of adulthood. It’s a rite of passage and often many teens have the wrong impression when beginning this passage. Most began high school with learning the last thing on their mind. They come in looking for a story like adventure and have a false sense of reality created through fabricated movie plots acted out by fictional characters. In all actuality high school is nothing like you see in movies, television shows, or what you read about in magazines.
High schools are the bridge between adolescence and adulthood. Schools that neglect to educate students about the realities of the “real world” commit a crime against the student’s public education. Schools and parents must also realize that students attending high school, experience many of the events mentioned in the book The Perks of Being a Wallflower, including the thought of
In addition to playing difficult games, children start to become part of a social world. School is age graded, meaning that students are placed in grades based on their age. Children tend to only talk to those in their grade. Children in the same age tend to form their own social status. It is in this social aspect of middle childhood where popularity comes...
Since socializing is what is more important to the teenagers it reflects on there test scores tremendosly. Steinburg states “In other words, over the past 40 years, despite endless debates about curricula, testing, teacher training, teachers’ salaries, and performance standards, and despite billions of dollars invested in school reform, there has been no improvement—none—in the academic proficiency of American high school students.” Even after 40 years nothing has been solved for the exact reasons why students aren’t getting the proper
The next generation of young adults is not being taught the important life skills needed to thrive in today’s world. Adults who have never had to challenge themselves are not going up the ladder of success. Dr. Whelan, a sociologist who has taught at many universities, has three books, and several notable achievements wrote the article, “Helping first year students help them...
Life in high school is not so easy for teenagers. There are many obstacles that students will have to overcome, such as the stress of homework, peer pressure, sexual activity, and most of all popularity. For many teens, popularity is a huge part of high school. Teens are expected to keep their grades up, have a social life, and to somehow have time for themselves and their family. Professor Allen stated that even if a student was very popular in high school, everyone still had the experiences of being rejected or feeling left out. No one can make it through four years of high school without emotional scars.
Are the new standards and expectations the world has for teenagers really creating monsters? The amount of stress that is put on students these days between trying to balance school, homework, extra curricular activities, social lives, sleep and a healthy lifestyle is being considered as a health epidemic (Palmer, 2005). Students are obsessing over getting the grades that are expected of them to please those that push them, and in return, lose sleep and give up other aspects of their lives that are important to them such as time with friends and family as well as activities that they enjoy. The stress that they endure from the pressures of parents, teachers, colleges, and peers have many physical as well as mental effects on every student, some more harmful than others. The extreme pressure on students to get perfect grades so that they will be accepted into a college has diminished the concept of actually learning and has left the art of “finagling the system” in order to succeed in its place (Palmer, 2005). There are many ways that should be implemented in order to reduce the stress on students so that they can thrive because, withoutthem, the school systems will only be creating generations of stressed out, materialistic, and miseducated students (Palmer, 2005).
Having explained the reason most children have become disheartened at the thought of school, I now turn my attention to the students who do realize school’s educational value. These are the students that will continue to prosper throughout their lives because they realize the extreme importance of education. There is a secret, yet not so secret, motivation behind their determination to exceed standards and expectations in school. The secret they withhold is their overwhelming desire to be successful in the future.