Newt Gingrich: Let’s End Adolescence.
Matthew Lee Anderson on the Controversial Case Against Adolescence.
Joseph Rendini at The Culture Project blog: Demographics vs. Culture, Slicing Horizontally, not Vertically.
Should Kids Be Able to Graduate After 10th Grade? Our local school district is already doing this in practice if not in name with many students taking a full load of dual credit classes at the local junior college. I think they’re following the lead of homeschooled students who began doing dual credit as a supplement to or substitute for the last two years of high school about six to ten years ago around here. Now it’s the norm among homeschoolers, and becoming the expected thing for academically advanced public schoolers, in my Major Suburban neck of the woods.
This topic of the artificiality and superfluity of the concept of adolescence fascinates me. I read The Case Against Adolescence, and although I had issues with the author’s emphasis on competency testing as gateway to legal rights and responsibilities, I agreed with his basic premise that young people should be able to take on adult rights and responsibilities as soon as they are able to do so rather than being artificially restricted by number of years they’ve been alive. In other words, why can’t fifteen and sixteen year olds get married? They did so for centuries before we invented adolescence and the teenager. Why shouldn’t thirteen, fourteen and fifteen year olds own property, earn wages for honest labor, and drive if they are able to do these things safely and are not being coerced to do them?
Homeschooled twins Alex and Brett Harris wrote a book, published last year, called Do Hard Things. It was a call to other young people to grow up and follow the Biblical mandate found in I TImothy 4:12:
Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.
Let’s treat our young people as if they were functioning, intelligent adults insofar as legally possible and see what happens. I think we might be pleasantly surprised.
While I agree with your statement…
“Let’s treat our young people as if they were functioning, intelligent adults insofar as legally possible and see what happens. I think we might be pleasantly surprised.”
I do believe that teenagers do require much guidance from the adults in their life. The same type of guidance we give a grade school child? No…but guidance nonetheless. I also do not believe that our teenagers today are equipped to emotionally and intellectually (the stuff that comes with age) to deal with all of this world’s stresses and decisions that must be made. Our world is so much different than the world was back in the early 1900’s. There are more demands upon our children that go beyond paying the bills…education namely as the biggest one, world concerns, etc.
I think, that if children are able to manage highschool courses along with the college courses then that is great! If they can advance their education beyond the limited premise our public schools give…great! But, I think it would be unwise to say that they then can go off and make adult decisions without guidance just because they are now “educated from books”. This is were the parents come into play big time…we are responsible to train our child and to gradually let them fly while they are still with us so that we can guide them.
With all of that said….I do think that this quote you spoke of….
“Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.”
Would really be awesome if it were to truly occur. For that to really happen then our culture and expectations need to change drastically. I think that a few exceptional teenagers today could truly pull that off – live by setting an example, live with with “wisdom” so to speak. Ahhhh….maybe that is your point… our culture must change.
Sorry about my novel…off to read all the articles you posted.
Speaking as a homeschooled teenager… hear, hear! I’ve spent most of my “school” hours reading books for fun, writing, watching TV, because I finish my actual schoolwork so fast but finishing highschool early is such a pain. I’m grateful for the chance to do all the extra things I do, but I generally feel like grade levels, etc., are just something I have to pretend to pay attention to and that makes them pretty pointless.
I have taken several college classes, got As and had the time of my life. In highschool it’s really HARD to find information, like the teachers and textbooks are trying to hide it from you. College is so much easier.
People do advance at different speeds, and that’s fine. Some kids need more guidance or for a longer period of time, but everyone shouldn’t have to progress at the speed of the slowest person.
Re: your last statement, I’ve been homeschooled all my life but I have a lot of friends in public school. (So much for the “homeschoolers are undersocialized” idea?) If you treat them like dumb teenagers, they act like dumb teenagers. If you talk to them like they’re intelligent, you’re pleasantly surprised. The difference is that a lot of homeschool parents always assume that their kids should be at the top of their potential, and they have the time to help them.
Re: Deanna, yes, teenagers need guidance. But it’s not going to do them much good if they aren’t looking for it. If you try to force guidance on a teenager, it’s just going to backfire, and I know that from experience. So, some kids need to stay at home longer, until they’re ready, but other kids just aren’t going to be ready until they go out and get some life experiences to teach them things.
Back to my main statement as a conclusion… we shouldn’t all have to be at the same level. That’s not the point of equality.