I found Mike Males' articles "Bashing Youth" and "Wild in Deceit" to be both a sad and necessary reality we must keep in mind as future educators. The research on media that Males performed was a wake-up call for me. Anytime an association with an acronym or name that sounds legitimate comes up in an article, we (or at least I) assume it to be the truth. However, the skewed statistics (and lies) that the media portray of teens are horrifying; heightened "teenage" pregnancy rates, out-of-control drug use, and an epidemic of STDs. This was a wake-up call to me because I just assume that these published statistics usually hold a bit more truth to them than what Males discovered. Although there were a few articles researched that directed more positive or truthful attitudes about teens, the majority of what we encounter and "hear through the grapevine" are that teens are bad. They are promiscuous. They are law-breakers, drug users, and apparently sex fiends. Males concludes his article with these words: "But these occasional exceptions do suggest how media responsibility could halt today's political assault on youth and heal spreading intergenerational hostilities." Obviously this is much more easily said (written) than done. However, as teachers of adolescents, we have some power and weight in these kids' lives. Keeping an open mind, not making assumptions, and providing a safe classroom environment are the beginnings of what we can do to turn around the bashing of youth in our society, by starting in our schools.
Finally, in "Wild in Deceit," I think Males made the crucial statement that so many are feared to say: "'teen violence' is poverty violence in disguise." A very large number of minorities in this country are living in poverty, and the stresses caused by poverty, according to criminologists often can lead to violence—not only among teens, but people of all ages. Males goes on to say that if the stats are reduced over every age group, teens in poverty are no more likely to commit violent crimes than adults over forty living in poverty. This has many implications for us as educators. First, teen violence will be more noticeable than adult violence because adolescents are the age group with which we are working. However, we alone can obviously not counteract the poverty in which these kids are living. All I can think to say now is that we need some serious education, economic, and social reform...
3 comments:
In the end of your post I think it hit head on what I thought was the most important part of these articles. Teen violence is not caused by some inherent primitive state that teens live in but by the state of poverty they are forced to grow up in. I've spent a lot of my time since college working with lower-income groups attempting to do what I can help alleviate the situation in any small way I can.
As teachers in the inner-city we will be in a strong position to become advocates against inner-city poverty and should take any opportunity we can to help alleviate it. We don't have the luxury to just go to class, teach our students and then go home. Because many of these students may not have parents who care about their situation or parents who are too busy working 2, 3, 4 jobs to support their families to be advocates in the society we have to be that for our students as well.
Sorry just my little rant to build on your observations from the readings.
I agree that education and social reform is necessary. I think that the targets should be adults, rather than the children. I can understand the push to "target the youth" for reform and education movements, but I think there could be a noticable difference in crime and poverty if the adults are targeted for reform and education. I think one of the easiest places to start would be support networks. Many people who were abused as children go on to abuse their children. Many of the people committing crimes were abused as children. Often times, child abuse stems from inability to deal with stress in the adults life; i.e. poverty. Rather than scapegoat our children, we should be finding ways to help adults raise children in a loving environment. Who will raise the next generation in a loving environment.
As a society, we are taking the easy way out by blaming the children for acting out, rather than trying to help each other.
I know that we need to change a lot of things about the way that society views teenagers, but I don't think that there is much that can be don't. I feel that as a society the public needs someone/group to blame for all the downfalls and right now it is the teenagers that are the ones society has picked for that roll. I think the best thing that we can do as teachers is not let the media's or societies' views on teenagers effect our classrooms. These kids need places where they feel safe, not judged or punished for crimes they have not committed, and as a teacher we can create a place like that in our classroom, which is at least a start.
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