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When somebody I meet learns that I am a high school teacher, a conversation like this often follows:
“I could never do that,” the person will say. “I would end up killing the kids.”
“No, actually the kids make the job worthwhile,” I’ll respond. “It’s all about the kids.”
“Still, teens are so rude these days. They have no respect for anybody. And half of them look like they’re on drugs or are angry at the world or something. I could never do it.”
While I agree that it takes a different kind of person to work with teens, it is unfortunate how many people who don’t work with kids, don’t know the truth about this generation of young people. Teens today, even the scary ones, often exhibit great compassion for others, and many are involved in service work, social action, and efforts to make the world better.
Recently the seniors at Gobles High School finished work on their senior legacy projects. The projects are self-designed and include both academic requirements (research, writing, interviewing, and presenting), and also some kind of community engagement project, which might be service work, volunteering, mentoring, raising awareness, or doing a project to improve some corner of the world. The challenge to the seniors is to “leave a legacy”, or a specific way they want to be remembered after they’ve graduated and gone out into the world.
Though I couldn’t possibly tell you about all the great work students did this year, a quick sample includes the young man who researched autism and worked with a younger autistic student at the school, and a presentation to his peers with a tear in his eye about how important it is to look past disability to see a human on the other side. Or the young woman who had experienced foster care as a younger teen, and focused her presentation and service work on the critical role of foster care in the lives of so many million children in our country. Or the young woman who has known too many teen mothers in her life, and researched and presented on the perils of teen pregnancy, communicating a message of abstinence, responsibility, and life. Or the young man who began weaving and selling handmade bracelets to raise money and awareness about shoeless children in countries ravaged by poverty and disease. Or the young woman raising money to support the work of missionaries to build a library in Africa. And on, and on, and on. And these kids stood loud and proud in front of their peers and talked about what it is they believe in and are working to make real.
As the adult in the room, the teacher, I listened to these seniors present and saw again that teenagers are some of the most important citizens in the world. They have such noble, romantic ideas about life, change, responsibility, and success.
So if you haven’t been around a teenager lately I hope you get a chance soon, especially if you find them to be a little scary. It is impossible to be cynical when teenagers start sharing the great love they have for others, and the great belief they have in the promise of the future we all share. In my experience, we’re in great hands.
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| Copyright ©2010 Corey Harbaugh |
Citizen Seniors
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