Trashing Teens. The whole culture collaborates in artificially extending childhood, primarily through the school system and restrictions on labor.
The two systems evolved together in the late 19th-century; the advocates of compulsory-education laws also pushed for child-labor laws, restricting the ways young people could work, in part to protect them from the abuses of the new factories. The juvenile justice system came into being at the same time. All of these systems isolate teens from adults, often in problematic ways. Our current education system was created in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and was modeled after the new factories of the industrial revolution. Public schools, set up to supply the factories with a skilled labor force, crammed education into a relatively small number of years. The factory system doesn't work in the modern world, because two years after graduation, whatever you learned is out of date.
What are some likely consequences of extending one's childhood? What can be done? Three Typical Mistakes in Thinking About the Future. When I was six years old, I was crossing the little bridge on Center street when I realized I was doomed. I don’t know why it only occurred to me then, but once it did I couldn’t deny it. I was in Grade 1, and I liked my current teacher, but I was afraid of the Grade 3 teacher (let’s call her Mrs X.) I’d heard stories about how mean she was from older kids, and I’d seen her barking in her shrill voice at the students who were unfortunate enough to be in her class. Because I was in Grade 1, it never seemed like it was my problem, until it occurred to me that I had no means to prevent myself from aging naturally and eventually becoming a Grade 3 student.
She was the only Grade 3 teacher in my small-town school, and I would eventually end up in her class. Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed. Well I’m in the working world again.
I’ve found myself a well-paying gig in the engineering industry, and life finally feels like it’s returning to normal after my nine months of traveling. Because I had been living quite a different lifestyle while I was away, this sudden transition to 9-to-5 existence has exposed something about it that I overlooked before. Since the moment I was offered the job, I’ve been markedly more careless with my money. Not stupid, just a little quick to pull out my wallet. As a small example, I’m buying expensive coffees again, even though they aren’t nearly as good as New Zealand’s exceptional flat whites, and I don’t get to savor the experience of drinking them on a sunny café patio. I’m not talking about big, extravagant purchases. In hindsight I think I’ve always done this when I’ve been well-employed — spending happily during the “flush times.” What I’m doing isn’t unusual at all. It seems I got much more for my dollar when I was traveling.
Is this you? The revolving internet, constant dullaart 2010.