In continuation of yesterday's post, I am also reminded of a conversation I had once with Will about the expansion of youth culture in America to include increasingly more space from which adults are excluded and in which children are autonomous. The internet is a vast stage for the enactment of children's complicated social lives, and there is a growing amount of fashion, stuff, and media marketed solely at them. At the same time, greater mobility in general means that fewer people live near their extended families, and the anonymity of urban and suburban life means that fewer people take responsibility for children who are not their own. As far as I can recall, the only regular contact I had with adults until probably college was with my parents and my teachers. No one else over the age of 18 even existed on my radar.
Will argued that his own best memories of childhood were moments in which adults were absent, so he didn't think an expansion of an exclusive children's world was too bad. I, on the other hand, think that children are basically underestimated but vicious tyrants, and the less adults intervene in their lives, the more they will tyrannize each other. Not that I think children should be constantly supervised. They can spend a lot of time unsupervised in a world shared with adults. But I do think adults are disinclined to take responsibility for introducing children to this world, and so they are content to allow the market to carve out a realm for them and let them raise each other in it. This is justified as being child-centered, or non-interventionist, and letting children follow their inner muses. If I recall junior high correctly though, it has mostly negative results.
But you know, I read too much into Arendt, and at some level, I think all change is bad and things are always declining. Perhaps you can show me why I'm wrong?
Thursday, October 18, 2007
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7 comments:
An interesting perspective. I'm not sure I'd consider suburban life anonymous per se, at least not everywhere. It's true that most people don't have the contact with extended family that they used to. But in my part of the Chicago suburbs, at least, everyone knows everyone's kids and the kids know us. It's that very thing that makes it possible for kids to run wild without parents. We feel safe letting them run around the neighborhood in packs because wherever they go, there is someone who knows them looking out for them. I for one think it's crucial for kids to forge relationships with adults outside their immediate family, whether it be teachers or extended family members or parents of friends. Because when they get to that junior high age where their parents can do no right, I want to make sure that there's someone else for them to talk to. So far, this all looks rather like my own childhood. What's different, though, is the fact that children here spend so little time in unscheduled, unsupervised activities. They run from school to piano lessons to karate to soccer to Spanish every day. This begins in preschool and goes on until college. Free play is relatively rare. I'm inclined to think that this particular change is bad. I'm not sure kids are actually learning more. I think they might be learning less. But this is all pure observation. I choose not to schedule my kid's life that way, but when he comes home, there aren't too many kids to play with. Most of them have classes to go to.
I, on the other hand, think that children are basically underestimated but vicious tyrants, and the less adults intervene in their lives, the more they will tyrannize each other.
Yes.
I think all change is bad and things are always declining.
Why didn't you ever come to Burke stuff? And no, you're not wrong. But you already knew I'd say that.
I don't know whether it's a good or bad thing to allow children more autonomy, but it's obviously a part of the new trend that pervades education today. In college (and I believe in school, too), it's student-centered learning, where the role of the instructor is much diminished and learning from each other and other sources is highly encouraged. I guess time should show the results of these new approaches.
Not to be rude...but does the above comment really say anything of substance?
It's just a related observation.
Harriet: Your description rings true, but I guess I'd say that there is a difference between looking out for kids in terms of yanking the neighbor's kid out of the way of oncoming traffic or giving him a band-aid for a skinned knee, and looking out for them in terms of engaging them intellectually (obviously this doesn't apply as well to younger children) as though they were adults in training rather than a foreign people whose aboriginal culture should not be disturbed. That's the kind of relationship you seem to be describing in junior high, and maybe my own experience here is atypical, but I don;t think such relationships are all that common.
Mark: Because I wasn't interested in spending my evenings drinking with a stuffy organization based around anachronistic titles and rules? I was busy. Also, don't be mean to my commenters.
Anonymous: Child-centered learning is at least a century old. Enough time has passed to show that it works no better than traditional learning.
Rita, it may be a century old, but right now, it seems to be presented as a new panacea and required of every educator to learn. Even a few years ago, it wasn't that intense and the traditional system seemed to be quite acceptable.
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