“Shouldn’t teenagers just shut-up and know their place? Don’t they just need to learn how to respect authority?” asked a concerned member of my family. The question was meant to carve out a case for society standing its ground while teens learned obedience, submission, and respect for authority. These are all things teens have resisted for many successive generations. Teens often see it as the ultimate disrespect for their heightened state of awareness. “They think they know everything!”
Putting aside content and skills for now, let’s examine the impact of this divide on the social order of our schools and nation.
Generally, social order from the top down frees the leaders’ energy to achieve greater levels of efficiency and productivity in any group dynamic. Cutting loose the workers who refuse to submit teaches valuable and authentic lessons about real world survival. Doing what you’re told – and doing it well – is highly prized in most nations and by many people here in the United States. It goes without saying that organizations with single points of focus, like the military, vitally need a powerful sense of command and control. “Shut up and know your place works in that environment. Education is not such an institution.
Students today are vaguely aware that experts believe the jobs from which they will retire have not yet been created. They clearly understand our country is in the midst of the greatest period of technological innovation in our history. Most young people are riding the leading edge of that change as consumers. They get it because they’ve been marketed more often than any other demographic with a message of entitlement.
Our families and society have subtly but forcefully told teens they are unique, special, and must stand up for themselves. These messages have been revealed in thousands of parent conferences and on public service commercials all the way back to Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No!” campaigns. We’ve repeatedly told our children their lives are too valuable to waste.
We have also repeatedly encouraged students to pursue their own interests and to own the educational process. In a nation dedicated to the ideas of private property and enterprise we have ingrained in our students the belief that with ownership come depth of understanding and self-responsibility. Being self-responsible is one of the greatest attributes our future citizens could possess in a competitive free market democratic republic.
In one ear teens hear the value and importance of Self Advocacy. In the other the directive to submit to the authority of the world of adults who clearly know better.
The health of our republic has rested upon the great ideas of individuals and the energy, common wisdom, and sacrifice of the masses. It is the consent of citizens that enables government to organize us for protection of life, liberty and the pursuit of personal happiness. In order to make informed choices our nation’s leaders have long favored a broad liberal arts education that offered an understanding of both Mother Nature and Father Culture. A working knowledge of the country and world was meant to help us understand change as it unfolds so we can help ourselves and our community.
School is somehow meant to accomplish all of this, and every child in America MUST attend – no small task. Each family wants something slightly different for their children and each child wants something slightly different than peers. If they are all encouraged to see the world differently, feel differently, and aspire differently, then a single model of participation is not only difficult to achieve but actually contrary to the mission. If our society and our families continue to encourage individuality and personal ownership of physical and intellectual property, then we must teach responsible individualism. Students must have a safe place to practice self-responsibility and ownership of their education but that means they must be nurtured as individuals rather than demographics.
I would not argue for authority and obedience to be the organizing method of this important and massive institution. Students must know more than authority and obedience to compete globally. Neither will stimulate innovation and neither truly teaches “your place”. Both offer productivity and efficiency but not ownership and certainly not enlightenment. Both are easier to organize and both tamp down misbehavior and that’s helpful. However, after graduation day, when authority is formally released, our young children must know how to survive in a changing future we cannot predict. Increasingly they will have to think for themselves. They must continue to ride the leading edge of innovation and change or we will all be swept underneath.
To insure the great ideas of individuals and the energy, common wisdom, and sacrifice of the masses young people must be self-responsible and have ownership in our national experience. For the sake of their successful survival and for our future I would argue a different value – one clearly missing in our national politics and missing amongst large segments of our teen and adult population – responsible individualism. That starts with respect. After all, practice makes perfect.
Filed under: Adolescents, High School, Student Voice, Teens Tagged: | Authority, obedience, self advocacy
If you watched the terminator, the cause of the apocalyptic world was Skynet becoming self aware. Teenagers are like Skynet, they have become self aware, and can have drastic effects on the future. People have evolved with certain psychological features, one which comes to mind is fear. Fear can be triggered in different people in different ways, however it can generally be brought about when a person senses a threat. A threat which many people are afraid of is powerlessness, to be at the mercy of someone else. One of those most important aspects of the American constitution is liberty or freedom. The founding fathers didn’t trust those who would be in power to safeguard liberty, this is why they separated the branches of government and gave the people the right to bear arms. In a nation which promotes life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and values individualism, how is it justified to try and force authority and obedience upon the segment of the population that has just become self aware? Teenage rebellion is the only logical conclusion of the current system. Respect is upholding the liberty of another. Respect shows that a person cares about the freedom of another. To not respect someone is to disregard their liberty, it shows that you don’t care about them and their freedom. Withholding respect is virtually an attack on one’s liberty. Now if you go back to human nature, our instincts tell us to fight against oppression, we don’t want to be caged, we don’t want to be powerless. That is why the only logical course of action is to fight back. If a teenager in America looks at the society around him, he can see that no one else is being oppressed like this. Our laws are made through debate and deliberation. We choose to treat something as important as laws in this manner, but we treat something equally important, our future, in a different manner. Throughout high school I found that some kids could work for hours and hours, yet do badly, and others could do hardly any work and ace everything. The difference between the two is quite simple, inspiration. If someone is inspired, if they have something they are trying to attain, they subconsciously work harder at it. Why treat teenagers like kids? All it does is lead them to revolt. What if you treat them like adults? What if instead of telling them what not to do, you teach them? What if you give them a reason to look forward to the world? If you can respect them and treat them like adults then they can fill those shoes. Respect can inspire them to work towards bettering themselves rather than acting out because they don’t like to be mistreated. When teachers respected me, I respected them and paid attention in their class. This meant that I learned what I needed to know while the teacher was teaching it. This meant that I never crammed before exams because I already learned what I needed throughout the year. In the past you’d be married right after hitting puberty, and then you’d be treated like an adult. If all through history “teenagers” had the capacity to act and behave like adults, why can’t we now? If respect gets introduced into high schools then it may make a difference; it worked for me.
I think this means I agree, it’s just that I like talking…