What's The Problem With America's Youth? I have the questions, I want your answers...

[takotsu 0]

What is the problem with America's youth?Not just violence, but things like skipping school, dropping out, failing, the insane ability to destroy the English language, and i guess violence too.What causes students to feel compelled to skip school? Is it some kind of "Fight the Man" mentality? Of course no one realizes that working at McDonald's for the rest of your life isn't as bad as going to school for five* (yes, only five) hours a day. Most likely because the people telling them this are the ones considered to be "The Man" and they must be disobeyed at all costs. My school is second to last on the list regarding overall school performance in the [not so] great state of Illinois. We [this is a broad generalization and in no way includes myself] have one of the highest dropout rates and one of the lowest graduation rates in the state and, obviously, the second lowest average test results. Our [another broad generalization not about myself] average ACT scores are lower than the state's average of 20.5. (ours were around 17)That paragraph basically questioned the first three interrelated problems."Wait!" you exclaim. "What do you mean 'destroy the English language'? I'm confused!"No, I don't mean "Spanglish" or weird accents or Cajun people (no offense). I mean people's inability to use grammar and real words or sentences.Phrases like "Shut up talkin' to me!" are common at my school. Why not say "Shut up"? or "Stop talking to me"? We cannot seriously blame the internet for the grammar and spelling problems in America. No one uses "Shut up talkin' to me!" in the AIM or MSN. (I did once, but the computer round-house kicked my face and said not to do it again.)Violence is obvious. I don't want to talk about it. That would take too long.UNRELATED SIDE NOTE:Think about this: Why do people use <[brackets]> so often on MySpace? It bothers me.UNRELATED SIDE NOTE v2.0:I saw it says http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ on the top of this page, but I went there, and it doesn't exist. someone should buy that domain and use it.

[Bluebear 0]

...and then I, Bluebear an European young girl will try to answer this. I have always heard that American youth is much... well, worse than youth from other countries.I have never been to America, but I have seen a lot of weird stuff on my television regarding such problems. First of all I have to say that they are very stupid, simply stupid when they "decide" to ruin their life like that. Dropping out of school and skipping classes is something that people have been doing for a long time. It is their problem. But if more and more people are doing that, then it is suddenly a problem. If McDonald's suddenly gets a lot more workers, then there will not be a lot of people left that gets a more... harder education. (I hope people understand my point.)When regarding the language I have heard some weird stuff. I think I understand English good enough, but some people I have talked to, (or heard on television...) well often I do not understand a single thing. That is quite confusing. There has been many discussions in the newspaper here regarding the fact that many people where "afraid that we were going to loose the Norwegian language." Oh, crap! It is not like that is going to happen. So maybe some things are a bit overrated; people are a bit afraid that is going to happen. (Regarding the Norwegian matter; more and more people were using English words more.) But yes, I do understand how you are feeling. It is annoying; and I hope that it wont spread to Europe.

[dre 0]

What is the problem with America's youth?Not just violence, but things like skipping school, dropping out, failing, the insane ability to destroy the English language, and i guess violence too.

[Note, this isn't aimed at anyone in particular, but just a general rant]

Here's the things that help that are out of the control of the youth: Consumerism and idiotic parents. Everything else is solely their fault. You live in a poor neighborhood? Well that's too bad, doesn't give you the excuse to get high. You see everybody on TV having sex at whatever time they want? Alright, just don't complain to me when you don't know s*** about pregnancy and you've changed 2 lives forever. You want to get yourself the iPod because everybody has it and you just want to pump noise into your ears but your family earns squat? Get over it you freakin candy a**. Your friends all smoke pot and then the magical "peer pressure" beast stuff a blunt in your mouth, completely against your will? You know what, I don't even have a comment for that without getting banned...

Most youth today are under the illusion that the world rotates around them and honestly are a bunch of retards. I congratulate those of you who go against the wave of 'stupidity = instant popularity' and actually value intellect. Even though I was born in Ukraine and came here when I was 8, I'm very much an American, although missing the current trend by a mile.

I apologize for my language, not my usual self, but I felt like I had to get that out of me because this is something I feel very strongly about.

[tricky77puzzle 0]

Now let's just hope that I'm not one of those "retards"...I think that dre makes a point. Of course, it comes out a bit too strongly. You might get a warning for that.I think skipping school and dropping out is worse for the poor than it is for the rich, who have no incentive to drop out anyway. It's basically a vicious cycle. The poor people need to drop out to make ends meet, which results in less education, which means that their kids will drop out as well. I think dre is telling people to reject the idea that anyone will support them, and that they have to go completely by themselves against all the vices of the world.But I also think the peer pressure point is a bit too harsh. If you want to try fighting peer pressure all by yourself, you might accidentally shut everything out and not see some of the positive pressure that friends give you.The "Fight The Man" mentality doesn't work for physical things, although a lot of advancements in technology were made this way. I'm presuming that it is a natural human impulse to fight "the man", but comform to authority. ("The man" being the one who puts you under that authority in the first place.)

[awesomebill61 0]

I don't feel like America's youth is headed in any worse a direction than the youth of generations past. The old are always criticizing the young, and yet society moves on. There will always be upper, middle, and lower classes.At my school, i feel like for the most part people realize the value of an education, and study hard and stay in school.That being said, I feel like in order to keep kids out of trouble you have to limit their free time. Notice i said free time, and not "unoccupied" time or "stress-free" time. Kids need structured activities around them to keep them out of trouble. This doesn't have to be something stressful or hard, it can be something fun, like a sport or something. This structured time gives them something to be motivated about, and reduces the time they have to get in trouble. Kids get in trouble when they are bored, unsupervised, and the only thing to do is drink a six pack and smoke some weed.Sure, there are people who drop out of high school, but its their choice to not go anywhere in life. Theres plenty of people who want to get a education and be successful, and they will gladly be the bosses of those who didn't care about the future while it was still the future.I, personally, am one who studies hard and tries to be successful. I don't try to "fight the man" but i am not going to repeatedly do things against my own will... for the most part i realize that "the man" is right and his ideals will help advance myself along with "himself". I worked hard on school rather than having a full time job (i do work 10-15 hours on the weekends), and the studying has paid off via college scholarships way way way more than fast food would have ever made me. But I am probably going to graduate #1 in my class and have the highest ACT score so maybe i am an exception rather than the norm.

[tricky77puzzle 0]

As an addition to my previous comment, dre, you can't put the blame 100% on the kids. They grew up in that environment, and those "idiotic parents" you talk about might not have taught him exactly how to get over the things that he can't have. Those parents don't teach them anything and they have nothing to go on.

 

Now, if their parents are loving and actually dive a damn about their kids but the kids still go on like that, then that's a different story...

[dre 0]

dre, you can't put the blame 100% on the kids.

Which I didn't.

those "idiotic parents" you talk about might not have taught him exactly how to get over the things that he can't have.

I did mention consumerism. It's just that from where I came, parents were a lot more respected and here, more and more I see them viewed as somewhat like an older friend.

Now, if their parents are loving and actually dive a damn about their kids but the kids still go on like that, then that's a different story...

You'd be surprised. However, I still believe that people are in full control of their lives. I understand that if a nuke were to drop on your city, that would be false, but your chance of dying from other causes are astronomical in comparison. I also believe that how you deal with stressful situations will dictate your success in the future. In Ukraine my family used to make 300 grivni which is about $60 per month, converted. We were poor, but I didn't really know it. When we moved here, we had to stay a week over at our cousins before we could rent something. My dad went to work at construction for about $9/hr and then at night, both of my parents went to deliver about 1000 newspapers, every day. It was really tough, but we moved on, eventually bought a house, and now were in another house, a new one this time, making $60,000 a year, living happy lives. I doubt any of that would've happened in my parents just said, you know what, it's too much, and just started drinking or something. Sadly, I see that attitude all too often, and I believe that it was because in their younger years, they weren't presented with situations that only had one solution. I could really write an essay about this, and I know many would disagree, but it just makes too much sense for me.

The old are always criticizing the young, and yet society moves on. There will always be upper, middle, and lower classes.

Sure, every generation will go on, but keep in mind that most of us wont live as well as the last generation did, and it's not mainly Bush's fault. There is a growing absence of engineers and scientists (depending on who's sources you read). For example, most of the infrastructure in the U.S. was built in the '50s because of the GI Bill, which gave a reason for people to study. There was huge growth, and then it just disappeared. Most college students aren't on the GI Bill anyways, but it still can bring up the point that they're really settling for less. Oh well, I'm just getting ahead of myself, let's just say the upcoming times will be quite interesting.

Now let's just hope that I'm not one of those "retards"...

I find that people that actually take time to post on forums (who in the world would do that?...) actually have some intellect, which most others highly lack. If the posts are actually relevant, that is, not spam or anything.

[baphometslayer 0]

Here's the things that help that are out of the control of the youth: Consumerism and idiotic parents.

Ding ding ding ding. This guy nailed 1 of the problems of this 2 part anomaly. Take a look at the news, and tell me what you see. Parents these days are looking out to blame ANYONE but themselves. This coupled with sleazy corporations who are marketing gangster rap to the 8-10 year age group, and you have a recipe for disaster. And please don't get me wrong, it is NOT just gangster rap, but that honestly is the best example to use.

Anyways, parents want violence to be left out of TV, video games, music, everything. But what they need to be doing is raising their damn children. Take control, tell them what they can and cannot play/watch/listen to. It isn't parents just being idiotic, they are also amazingly lazy as well.



The other portion of this problem can be blamed on our education system. For some reason the people that control our lives think that having a person that is well rounded in all academic areas is somehow better for their being in the real-world. I'd beg to differ. It just turns the student off and they begin to slump in to this attitude where they feel school is useless and skip it. We need to start having students specialize their learning as soon as they are out of Elementary school. It'd be probable that you would be able to keep their interest up if they were learning things that they would actually like to learn.


Violence is mainly caused my consumerism and Idiotic/lazy parents, in all honesty.

[rayzoredge 2]

I love the argument of bad parenting, because it's SO true.People aren't born the way they are, for the most part (save for hereditary and genetic issues). Their behaviors, instincts, and thought processes are shaped by their peers, their environment, and their role models... basically the "nurture" side of growing up. You guys made some awesome points about parents being lazy and ignorant; I can't count the number of times I've heard of cases where parents wonder why their kids might seem more violent or verbally-abusive because they pick up on the concepts and ideas from video games, movies, and anything, really, that's not suitable for kids. But do parents even look at the ESRB labels slapped onto those items? Do they take into consideration NOT to buy their kids whatever they want, that money doesn't grow on trees, that some things are much better appreciated personally than to just jump onto the bandwagon?Nope. They just want to get the darn game/toy/whatever to shut their kids up.Of course, that reinforces a spoiled image and the fact that it doesn't teach kids anything about saving money, not taking things for granted, thinking for themselves, etc.It's ridiculous, and many people seem to know what's really going on, yet we still are on a downward spiral as far as kids being raised in the worst possible ways. It's not just the parents' faults, though... but the nation in itself. Mass media promotes us to get things that we don't need, to get the latest and greatest because the thing you just bought yesterday now won't suffice, and it's all to make money. Consumerism is another awesome point, and it's rather hard to not subject anyone to the brainwashing techniques of the commercial end of society.In all reality, if we are to change as a society, we seriously need to reform the way we do things as far as reducing bad influences, promoting "good" things, and allowing for the general public to let them make their own decisions. However, it's never going to happen, or at least not within our lifetimes, thanks to corporate greed and our ever-enticing concepts of convenience and a better standard of living (without consideration to affordability or cultural impact).

[cangor 0]

Yeah, I guess parenting is a big problem, especially with kids being too spoiled and all. But most of all the problem is that KIDS DON'T CARE. And they should. Here in the US we have wonderful public education. You'd have to be a moron not to take advantage of it. There are kids in other countries who wish they had schools but don't. Read the book Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin and you'll see what I mean. Here in the US kids have wonderful opportunities and don't take advantage of them, and they take everything that they have for granted. I see the way my peers act and it disgusts me.

[thorne 0]

I think part of it too is that America values overachieving a bit too much, to the point where people just get too stressed out. We expect kids to be superachievers...we tell them that if they want to go to college and succeed in life, they must get straight A's, be a member of every single club/sport/organization that ever existed, do 294837273 hours of community service, etc., but they still want to have lives and hang out with their friends and such...and where do you get the time for all of this? When do you get to sit down and relax? You don't, and so the stress builds and builds and, in worst-case scenarios, causes you to act out. Many kids who committed heinous acts often leave their peers puzzled because they seemed like such good kids. It's just too much pressure. When you combine the stress with influences from the media, such as the seeming normality of violence, you have a recipe for disaster.There indeed need to be some major changes in our society. Major.

[dre 0]

I think part of it too is that America values overachieving a bit too much, to the point where people just get too stressed out. We expect kids to be superachievers

Sometimes it's a challenge just to get them to pass, and it's not that hard. ANYBODY can do it.

we tell them that if they want to go to college and succeed in life, they must get straight A's, be a member of every single club/sport/organization that ever existed, do 294837273 hours of community service, etc.,

If you're really serious, then that'll have to be done. Not so much the straight A's, because any idiot can ace the standard classes required to pass, but to show improvement over time and to take hard classes to prepare yourself. However, about 2% of us will actually have to do this, the other 8% will have it easy, and everybody else will fail or drop out. And to be honest, it's actually easy once you get used to it, which took me about half a year. Besides, you'll be in for a nice surprise when you decide to go to college/university and get hit with 6 hours of homework if you just slacked through high school.

When you combine the stress with influences from the media, such as the seeming normality of violence, you have a recipe for disaster.

It all depends on what kind of person you are, no amount of pressure or media will push a good person to do crap. Edited February 26, 2008 by dre (see edit history)

[Elessar 0]

I think part of it too is that America values overachieving a bit too much, to the point where people just get too stressed out. We expect kids to be superachievers...we tell them that if they want to go to college and succeed in life, they must get straight A's, be a member of every single club/sport/organization that ever existed, do 294837273 hours of community service, etc., but they still want to have lives and hang out with their friends and such...and where do you get the time for all of this? When do you get to sit down and relax? You don't, and so the stress builds and builds and, in worst-case scenarios, causes you to act out. Many kids who committed heinous acts often leave their peers puzzled because they seemed like such good kids. It's just too much pressure. When you combine the stress with influences from the media, such as the seeming normality of violence, you have a recipe for disaster.
There indeed need to be some major changes in our society. Major.

I gotta LOL at this. No offence at Americans out there, because I appreciate America's openness, creativity and contribution to the world, but seriously, I don't respect their culture.

America values overachieving? I don't know about this, but you should seriously come and take a look at Asia. Asians are much more stressed out, especially in education. Koreans, for example, value their education and their system is so exam-oriented that to fail a major public examination means failure in getting into universities. In Singapore, people fight over limited spots in their national university to the point that they study so hard until it changes their whole culture, moulding them into what they are now - a society that is scared of the future, taking every chances now to prepare for the worse. And don't even get me talking about Malaysia. Everybody here competes for the coveted JPA scholarship - JPA being the Public Service Department. Each year, thousands of scholarships are offered to bright students that get straight A1's and they are sent to prestigious universities everywhere. The ironic part is that there are simply TOO many students scoring straight A's and too few scholarship spots. We (as in, the students) are born into a system of rigorous examination-based education and to get a less than exceptional result in our public examination means to forfeit on that scholarship and go to a private college instead (which many people can't afford).

Overachievers? Our Asian world is full of them. The smart ones get smarter and brighter, the idiotic ones gets left out and become society's gangster/rubbish/thugs/hooligans.

I think the problem with America is the culture. Since the advent of the Hollywood era and sex symbols like Marilyn Monroe, Americans create a liberal, Western culture that reflect sophistication, modernisation and everything that 'should be'. The problem with this is that Western culture isn't perfect, and it appalls me that many Americans are actually stupid! Not stupid in the sense of retarded, but stupid in the sense that they do many foolish stuff, i.e. not valuing their future, dropping out of schools etc. This applies to teenagers only, mind you. I did this IQ test on Tickle and my score is at least 30 points higher than the average American (according to their statistics). I don't intend to brag that I'm a genius (I am one of the top scorers in my school though) because my friends got just about the same marks that I did for the IQ test, but I really am surprised that the average American teenager knows less than they should.

Is it because of the education system itself? I think so. Western education system focus on personal development and creativity that it neglects knowledge and the important things that should be learned. Over here, knowledge comes first. My friend who is in Australia studying at their high school before entering university told me that their syllabus is at least 2 years behind ours - in the sense that we already learned what they are learning now. Yet, it surprises me that we are labelled 'third world country' and they are a modern, 'first world' country.

So the central root to America's problem is the culture. I don't think there's much to be done, because that Western capitalist idealism is so deeply rooted that it's hard to change their mindsets now.

[FraKture 0]

@above post

 

You realize asia is going through the same cycle america went through, right?

Lets go from early 1900's to now

You had the boom in industry and people fighting for their rights

You had the "biggest and best" buildings competitions and gimmicks "world's tallest building" and such

You have Freedom Fighters

 

I could go on, but I doubt anyone would know exact things i was talking about.

 

There is a definate cycle, and i can remember reading more than once that Japan and other Asian countries are following in the footsteps of america on the road to immaculate economy.

 

again@above post

 

Did you somehow magicaly grow up in america and then shoot across the world to grow up in Korea again? Well then, you don't have a well informed idea of what America is really like. Yes, the schools are pathetic but you can obviously see people on the internet trying to improve themselves and each other daily. There are overachievers, but unlike you and your people we aren't forced to do anything. We have the freedom to do whatever we want. Capitalism trumps all cards. Anyone can become rich and powerful, it is all just drawing straws.

 

@topic

 

I skip school quite often, but it's usually because I don't feel like going to a boring jailhouse-like setting for 6-7 hours to learn about the same things a google search + logic could teach me in under 2 hours.

[tricky77puzzle 0]

If you're really serious, then that'll have to be done. Not so much the straight A's, because any idiot can ace the standard classes required to pass, but to show improvement over time and to take hard classes to prepare yourself. However, about 2% of us will actually have to do this, the other 8% will have it easy, and everybody else will fail or drop out. And to be honest, it's actually easy once you get used to it, which took me about half a year. Besides, you'll be in for a nice surprise when you decide to go to college/university and get hit with 6 hours of homework if you just slacked through high school.

6 hours of homework comes sometime at around Grade 12, or at finishing school. At university, you don't really "get" any "homework" (in the sense that you don't get assigned any day-to-day practice sheets), but the "real" homework is that one big project that makes up your term paper. All the rest doesn't get marked.

 

Well, that's according to one of my friends at church who goes to university. I don't know myself, since I'm only in grade 9.

 

Also, if you're going to take hard classes, take them because you need them to get a good standing, not just because they're hard and you want to show off. Like me, I write Grade 11 and Grade 12 contests while I'm still in Grade 9 because I want to get really good at math and be favoured for a spot at a certain university program, with all those tests plus whatever else I achieved under my r?sum?'s belt.

Edited February 27, 2008 by tricky77puzzle (see edit history)