For August 3, 2001                                                      Drummer Column, Gibbs, 745 words

 

 

Decade's Kids: (Part IV) It's up to YOU

 

 

     For the last three weeks I've been analyzing the role of teens in America from the 1950s through to the present. In closing, I'd like to examine today and then project forward.

     Let's first deal with the crucial issue of high-school violence, a relatively new phenomenon. Why now? Who's responsible? What's wrong?

     Kids can be mean to each other, especially in school, and they always have been. It begins with middle-school puberty and lasts into courtship. It's part of the awkward posturing and preening necessary in establishing a sexual pecking order. It doesn't help that teenage alienation has been increasing for forty-plus years. 

     It's important for kids to find a support group -- friends in similar socio-sexual categories -- for empathy and sympathy during these harsh times. The cruelty of teenage life is a given. The chance of finding friends is less certain. When exposed to cruelty without peer support, kids can lash out, sometimes violently. We read about the murderous assailant's frustration at being excluded, insulted, or jilted. Perhaps the aggregate message is this: "If we had felt love and acceptance, we would not have done these horrible things."

     Kids need affirmation from their peers, not us. Adults can be the most loving, caring people in the world, but that's not going to help a teen being putdown at an all-teen party.

     What can we do? We can instill tolerance and acceptance in our own children so that when the teasing begins, our child will be the one to stop it rather than perpetuate it. We can lead our own lives in ways that rekindle children's respect. We can't kill Hitler again, like the parent heroes of WWII, but we can be heroes in other ways. We can be driven by humanitarian issues as much as individual gain. We can spend more time with our families than we do with our jobs. We can expect the best of our children and show our approval profusely. We can fight for the good life -- a clean body, a clean environment, equality, human rights. We can fight for honesty in business and government. We can be strong, ethical, and virtuous. We can teach by example.

     Boy. That was easy to say.

     Beyond emulating perfection, what organized thing can we do? That's a tough one. Bringing back the malt shops of the 1950s won't cut it. Organizing a nation-wide "Teen Team Club" is risky because no matter how cool we make it, it will be rejected as adult-centric and cornball by many of our most at-risk teens. Kids want their social gatherings to be self-directed, natural and organic. 

     Individual groups and cities may succeed at creating teenage social events, but the crisis of congregation faces teens across the nation in every village. The solution should not be scattershot and left to chance. It needs to be across the board.

     Time to look at schools. Schools are the bittersweet national melting pot, loaded with potential and limitation. Schools are where we make life-long friends, and where teen violence focuses its bloody evil.

     Schools presently deal only with a segment of a person's day -- the time of work and learning. Leisure time, social time, fun time, play time, personal time all come outside of the schoolhouse walls.

     I'm yelling this: A place must exist where kids can congregate safely to relax, socialize, play, be themselves, and get personal. Either we create such places, or it's going to happen anyhow, unsafely and horribly fragmented.

     I know from personal experience there is a marked difference between most students who go home at 3 p.m. and those who stay after hours. Band members, club members, athletes, journalists, those who extend their social contacts beyond the normal day are more familial and caring about each other.

     When I take backpackers into the forest for a week, and they survive together -- working, learning, eating, helping, healing, playing, grooming, watching the stars, and sleeping as a group -- they are changed. They are different, different, different. The transformation is so obvious, so positive, so wonderful, that I know in my heart there are curative, restorative powers in the mix. I'm yelling again: YOU must help teens to live together.

     One solution for the future: more school -- second shift. No credentials required. Parents, mentors, and nice folk welcome. YOU are welcome. The curriculum: live, love, care, share, try, cry, have fun, and do onto others as YOU would have them do onto YOU.