New Dangers

We live in dark times, people. I feel that I, Eliza Bloggersnark, have a noble duty to correct this. I'm a teenager myself. I've been writing with a quill pen for the past two years. Letters to long lost friends. Hogwarts acceptance letters. Mother's Day cards.
Don't let your children fall into this trap. Do you want your daughter forging Professor McGonagall's signature? Do you want her sending mail to poor girls without Internet access?
Parents, rise up! Teachers, defend! Students, do nothing! Your very education is at stake.

New dangers. There are none. We only find new ways to complain about them.

Feel Free to Die-If You're Eighteen

On Tuesday, Utah passed a law prohibiting teenagers from using a phone while driving. Not texting. That's already illegal for everyone. Calling is now banned and it's just for youth.
I did another post recently on the dangers of driving. Cars are monstrous hunks of metal that hurtle down the asphalt and sixty miles an hour, fighting for space with other monstrous hunks of metal. They can kill you. It doesn't matter how old you are, how experienced you are, what numbers are printed on your license. Distractions are fatal.
The law does allow for emergencies-like telling the police a monstrous hunk of metal has collided with your face, for instance. But if you need directions while driving you're on your own.
My parents talk while driving all the time. It's just not practical to pull over sometimes. You need to get somewhere and you need to get there now. Otherwise you'd have time to circle around the block and get lost. No phone necessary.
I'm on the verge of getting my license. Forget phones. I can't even watch the street signs. My radio's never on. Maybe I'll turn it up some time over the summer months. For now, my primary concern is getting there alive.
Of course there are safety issues. There's always a safety issue. But the lawmakers had to be somewhat lenient.  Legislators complained it interferes with personal liberty. Odd to see adults support us for once. They left adults their liberty and gave teenagers yet another driving restriction.
Once again, it's blamed on maturity and reasoning capabilities. No. We have very limited experience. Put a twenty nine year old man behind the wheel for the first time and you'll get similar results. But he can give friends a lift whenever they need it. He can drink at a party so long as he stays below the legal limit.
And while he's driving to that drinking party, he can call for directions.

Our Ads

A Spanish abuse awareness organization created this brilliant advertisement. When anyone over four feet tall looks at it. they'll see the message, "Sometimes child abuse is only visible to the child suffering it." The children themselves get a different message. " If somebody hurts you, phone us and we'll help you."

My favorite part isn't the simple but effective design, the raw true words, or even the empowering message. It's that one word-you.
How often do you see an add aimed at youth?

Does your child struggle with acne?
Is your child falling behind in school?
We know more about school and acne than our parents. The only ads that say 'you' instead of 'your child' are for products no adults would ever want to buy. Website commercials say "Ask your parents before going online." Not, "Talk to your child about going online."
The abuse ad does have an obvious flaw. Millions of abused children are taller than four feet (122 cm). But you can't deny the heartwarming message sends. Finally, someone wants to strengthen youth.

Seniors: Fun and Games. Everyone Else: Die.

My school has this little program called arena scheduling. The name says it all. Scheduling means "the process of selecting classes you will take the following school year". Arena means "fight to the death, children, and don't come crying to the adults when you fail. We designed this so the older kids will win."
Here's how it works. At about 2:32 P.M., you log in so you can stare at the screen and practice clicking. This isn't the time to plan out your classes. No, we're supposed to have a goal and a backup plan a week in advance. At 3:00 P.M., the program opens. At 3:01, all the classes you want are gone.
Electives vanish in the first few seconds. The best teachers go next. Most people have a parent working on a separate computer, but that's still not a guarantee you'll get the class you need.
Since our school has roughly 2,000 student to worry about, they divide it up by grade. The juniors go first. They'll be seniors next year. That means they're taking English, half a year of social studies, and the rest is all electives. They get to pick their schedules two days in advance.
I'm a sophomore. I took creative writing 1 this year, and at the urging of my teacher, decided to take creative writing 2. Every last seat was occupied before it opened.
High school lasts four years. You need 3.0 math credits, 3.0 science credits, and 3.5 social studies credits. But remember, English is important. It's the only four year core class.
My friend Hannah is an honors student. She went to a charter school that taught 10th grade honors English to freshman. They had the same program for accelerated learners at my school. That means my friends are  taking 11H as sophomores. So 12H next year, right?
Nope. Doesn't work like that. The curriculum only takes you up to junior year. After that you're on your own. They have AP classes since you'll be in college next year, but some brains are just too delicate for that. They can take Shakespeare, science fiction/fantasy, newspaper, or creative writing 1 and 2.
That explains a lot.
I write for the newspaper, but I couldn't get English credit for it. I'm not a senior. They'll only count it as an elective. I'd gladly do the same with sci fi/fantasy, but I'm banned from enrolling. I'm not a senior.
My friend Lauren is a Shakespeare fanatic. Her drama teacher recommended taking a Shakespeare as an elective. She asked her counselor about it and was told she couldn't. Not a senior. She enrolled anyways (there was still a seat open) and she's waiting to see if they'll kick her out.
It's not just classes. Only seniors are allowed to be club officers. I've heard of schools that block other grades from eating in outdoor courtyards and parking in the best spots.
They say senior year is glory year, but that's no reason to give seniors special privileges. They've done nothing to earn it but survive three years of public education and pass classes. They're given ample opportunity to take easier classes while younger students who want to challenge themselves are banned. We see enough ageism in the world without allowing it to flourish in high schools.

Look away, sophomores! This is too complicated for your underdeveloped brain!

Rant over. 

Not A New Problem. Not A New Answer.

I'm so sick of the dangerous driver stereotype.
Car crashes have been around since before phones.
Alcohol has been around since before car crashes.
Teenagers have been around since before alcohol.

My grandma learned to drive when she was eleven. Her teacher was her cousin, who was six months younger. When they were done tending to all the chores that needed to be done on the mink farm, they'd drive their roofless, seat belt-less truck up and down the gully. "Just like a roller coaster," she tells me.
My dad learned to drive when he was twelve. Well, learned might not be the best word for it. He was babysitting, so his parents weren't around to teach him that night. He did drive. He just didn't get very far. Stupid tree.
I didn't get behind the wheel of a car until I was fifteen. I've been sixteen for almost six months and I still don't have my license because I'm busy getting my forty hours in. It's April and I've never been in a car driven by another sophomore. None of them will take me home from school because of the six month rule.
We're cautious. Definitely not the beer-guzzling, obsessive-texting, horrible drivers you think we are.
Get behind the wheel after too many beers and you can kill people. I don't care how old you are. I don't care how long you've been driving. I don't care what kind of superior reasoning capabilities your adult brain is supposed to possess.
Don't say we're too (stupid, young, immature, underdeveloped) pick your favorite term to understand the consequences. Don't tell me we think we'll live forever. So you're older, you've had more time to watch your loved ones die. We've lost our friends, siblings, grandparents, parents, and goldfish too, thank you very much.
 It's so Slap Me Over the Head with a Cold Dead Fish obvious, even before the assemblies. I've been listening to those public service announcements since long before I had a phone or a learner's permit. We get it. Everyone gets it. The only people I've seen texting while driving are adults.
Of course there are stories. Of course there are behind-the-clipboard statistics. Don't give me those. I've seen life without a clipboard. 

Rebels vs. Angels

 
This isn't one of my fun posts. I've wanted to say this ever since I began blogging but I couldn't find the right words. This paragraphs in blue are from an Independent article posted back in 2009.

The portrayal of teenage boys as "yobs" in the media has made the boys wary of other teenagers, according to new research.

Figures show more than half of the stories about teenage boys in national and regional newspapers in the past year (4,374 out of 8,629) were about crime. The word most commonly used to describe them was "yobs" (591 times), followed by "thugs" (254 times), "sick" (119 times) and "feral" (96 times).

Other terms often used included "hoodie", "louts", "heartless", "evil" "frightening", "scum", "monsters", "inhuman" and "threatening".

Evil. Scum. Inhuman. Monsters. When we see those words describing anyone else-an ethnic minority, a religious group, a political organization-we cry afoul. We know these groups are being scapegoated, poor them. But youth is such a broad category. Every human being who lives past the age of twelve falls into it. And if you pass that mark, you can no longer call teenagers us. But it's not quite a them either. 

So it's that. That time of life. That's the problem with society. That's what's wrong with teenagers these days. 

The research – commissioned by Women in Journalism – showed the best chance a teenager had of receiving sympathetic coverage was if they died.

"We found some news coverage where teen boys were described in glowing terms – 'model student', 'angel', 'altar boy' or 'every mother's perfect son'," the research concluded, "but sadly these were reserved for teenage boys who met a violent and untimely death."

At the same time a survey of nearly 1,000 teenage boys found 85 per cent believed newspapers portray them in a bad light.

The only good teenager is a dead one, or at least a sweet little honors student with cancer. Honors student. Every mother's perfect son. We're viewed through the eyes of adults. You can be a school shooter or an Eagle Scout. Take your pick.

But wait! You've seen other articles, right? The ones about high school football games. I can't slam those as negative. 

"Stories about sport and entertainment, which might have balanced other negative coverage, also took a critical line. Only 16 per cent of stories about teens and entertainment were positive: only 24 per cent about teens and sport were positive."

The research found that – for all the coverage of teenage issues – the boys' voices themselves were rarely heard in newspapers. Fewer than one in 10 articles about young people actually quoted young people or included their perspectives in the debate.

Articles about education cite lawmakers, teachers, principals, and voters. But not the students themselves. Even the Sick Teen articles quote parents and doctors. 

Fiona Bawden, the WiJ committee member who presented the research at the British Library, said: "When a photo of a group of perfectly ordinary lads standing around wearing hooded tops has become visual shorthand for urban menace, or even the breakdown of society, it's clear teenage boys have a serious image problem."

 It's true. I have no behind-the-clipboard statistics to back it up, but I know it because I see it every day in high school. I've heard my own friends echo these feelings. We know we're inferior. You've done your job, media. Now feel free to shut up.
It's not just Britain and it's not just the boys. It's all of us, all of us, today, yesterday, and forever.

Go here for the full article.

Five Things You Won't Learn in Math Class

How to Tell A Person's Gender at A Glance
This is a real word problem I had to solve:
Jordan walks to school. What is the probability Jordan is male? Write the conditional probability equations and then find the probability.
If you solve it, you get a percentage. Fortunately, I happen to sit next to a Jordan Baumgart in math, and he was able to provide me with a more solid answer.
Spelling

So one day Satan decided, "Let's put the alphabet in math." They called it algebra. I've now done math with exclamation points and a negative i. 

Geography

Admit it. If I asked you to find Soh Cah Toa, you'd think it was a city in Asia. 

Useful Life Skills

All you non-architect adults out there, can you tell me how the Pythagorean theorem can be used to solve conics? I've known twelve year olds-not prodigies, just normal seventh graders-who help their parents with college math. 

How to Slay A Dragon
And here's another problem:
You are about to attack a dragon in a role playing game. You will throw two dice, one numbered one to eight and the other with the letters A and F. What is the probability that you will roll the values six and A?
The answer is 1/48. But this problem leaves out a lot of information. Does rolling 6A enable us to survive the dragon, or merely attack it? And it fails to take into account the strength of the dragon's hide, whether or not it has a breath weapon, and the type of broadsword we're using. I do not feel math class is adequately preparing us to fight dragons.

That's the 47th kid we've lost this month! 

They say math is preparing us for the future. If the world is overrun by dragons, there shall be no future.