Topic: The Future of America
Your assignment: Compare and contrast the two situations
Situation A:
As a summer reading project, a group of students at a local high school read DIAMONDS FOR THE DEAD. Yesterday, I had the distinct pleasure of leading the book discussion. The students were engaged and enthusiastic, and they asked some good questions and answered lots of mine. They were polite, respectful, and fun to interact with. (Thanks for the invite, and thanks for choosing my book to read!)
Situation B:
Yesterday morning, while I was waiting at the bus stop with my younger son, two teenagers drove by with their windows down, screaming at the top of their lungs. They zipped by us, then stopped, U-turned, and strafed us with a return scream-by. Then they turned down our cul-de-sac, still screaming like banshees. A minute later, they reappeared, still yelling like fools (fortunately, no one seemed to be in pain). Finally they drove off, presumably to bless another neighborhood. All in all, quite entertaining.
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8 comments:
The weird thing is that they could be the same kids! Really...I live with my second set of teenagers. My first are long grown-up. This set has different problems and challenges than my first set did in the 70's and 80's. We'll see.
I like the thoroughness of the screamers...
I think because we live in America we’ll always have the contrast of both scenarios – I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not but we’ve seemed to survive so far.
I spend a lot of time with teens and Jan is right. There's a young man who cuts the grass of my elderly neighbor without being asked or paid. She reminds him of his grandma who died. I saw him with his friends and though my ears would burn with his language. It's a rough time those teen years!
There are an always will be two types of people in the world. I am reminded every day of how I am the other type of person.
Jan - You are so right--teenagers are like young Jekyll and Hydes. And yes, I did a double-take to make sure it wasn't my oldest doing the screaming!
Jane - I think Paul Revere did some screaming in his time.
Mary - You spend a lot of time with teenagers? You have my condolences.
Alissa - So you always ask to sit in the "no screaming" section?
Absolutely the same kids! There is a young woman who lives in my home and we HEAR she is thoughtful and pleasant, but you'd never know it from the tantrums she throws about pretty much everything. In all seriousness though, I think young people have to test different selves to figure out what is most 'them'--hopefully they don't get CAUGHT in to drastic a test, or they get pigeonholed. The kids who don't test though--those are the ones I really worry about.
When I was young, we used to play "Hey, cow!" That's where you yell "Hey, cow!" when you pass a group of cows in a field, with one point for every cow that looks up at you.
We discovered, though, that you get a lot more points for yelling "Hey, cow!" at a group of people. Highly entertaining, of course.
Oh, and this was so long ago, we had to yell it from the backs of our brontosauri.
I read a lot about teenage brain development (and the short circuiting that goes on while the brains are developing). I'm thinking it might have something to do with it? Kids can be awesome one minute and crazy the next!
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