Redefining the Notion of Youth Blog #2

                                                        What's Wrong With You 

This little story at the beginning of the article is about a drama teacher who loves her job and teaching teenage students. A father was not happy about the play production, Grease and wanted his son to be pulled from the play because he thought the person he was playing ' Kenicke' was sending the wrong message. The teacher had advised him that she was not going to do that, that his son has earned that part and was not going to take it away from him. The father didn't seem to happy about this. The father than asked the teacher "What's wrong with you," he didn't understand why the teacher enjoyed teenagers company so much. She would take her students on feel trips and out to dinners and plays. This confused the father. He is right about one thing however, many people well, adults do not enjoy the company of teenagers. In my opinion it takes a very special person to work with any type of children but have to have a certain mindset when working with teenagers. I learned very quickly in my own experience that I do not have the mindset or even the patience for working with teenager was not for me.

                                                          Fear of Youth 

In the 1950s adults were introduced to the rebel youth poster child James Dean. This began becoming nightmares for parents with rock and roll and hell raising 50s which turned into their children start to drop out in the 60s. Even "psychologist as well as sociologist struggled to deal with the youth." (Steinberg). Television during this time did not help the "struggle" parents had with their teenage children. Television showed teens not talking back, not questioning adults which is all unrealistic. This is why its shown on television, it is called acting. This is something parents and adult figures tend to forget. Being known as or even having the ideas of drag racing, hoods, loose girls and talking back according to Steinberg automatically were labeled as lower class behaviors by kids across the other sides of the tracks. Some of the Stereotypes mentioned in this part of the article include "preppies" and "hoods." Preppies usually referred to the higher class usually those who classify as white where as the "hoods" were classified as people of color/brown people. As youth for a long time we tend not to give them the change to lead or any opportunities for a leadership position. Steinberg mentions the phrase "Kept-in" which a lot of teenagers and young adolescents feel because we are constantly being put down by an adult figure whether it be a teacher or parent or someone in the adult authority figure.   We are told that certain things aren't right if our parents or other adult figures don't agree with it. For example many people don't believe that being gay or lesbian or Bi is right and i've seen many people being put down for it and saying its a sin, or its just a phase. What a lot of adults tend to forget is how their words can affect that child. Their words are a lot more powerful than they think and they constant being put down can really affect a child it could lead to some serious issues in a child's life such as becoming depressed, suicidal and/ or a an eating disorder and so much more.Putting children in a stereotype or labeling them can be extremely detrimental to any child at any age however, in my experience it in my opinion is most effective to a child during their teenage years. I truly believe that between the ages of 13 all the way up to young adolescents is when we are most hard on ourselves because 1. we are figuring out who we are 2. we're we "belong" 3. who we want to be and who we want to be seen as. Some of the stereotypes I have noticed during my high school years is because I went to a private/catholic high school a lot of people labeled me as rich and labeled the people of color in my class poor and they only got in because of a sports scholarship. But because I, identify as white they automatically assumed I had money and I still fight this fight today. Most of my class from high school class was on an academic scholarship no matter the color. Were there sports scholarships of course but I still fight the fight that just because this person was a different skin color does not mean they were there on a sports scholarship. You do not know anyone from just looking at them. We tend to label each other because as much as we say that we aren't taught it, we are. We all do it whether it be consciously or unconsciously but we also don't know how it would affect the other person because we aren't them and we are all affected differently.

                                                         My Experience 

While I can't remember a specific time of exactly when I had felt prejudice as a young person, I do feel it more than I thought I would as I became older. Not much in the education setting but a lot in the work setting and still to this day in the work setting. Any or almost every time I tried to mention something that I thought might help the work setting I always got shut down or ignored because I either didn't have enough experience according to them or I was too "new" and couldn't possible understand how anything. Because I have been the youngest person in multiple settings I remember getting blamed at multiple places for other peoples mistakes because I haven't been there long so how could I possible know what I am doing. This has lower my confidence tremendously in the working environment because i'm tired of being ignored and honestly feel like it has been a huge waste of my breathe as well as time. I am working on getting my confidence back and letting my voices be heard again.