At Thirteen

     Thirteen-year-olds are on the very bottom of the teenage spectrum. They can't do many of the things older teens can do, but still face the same problems of older teens and adults.
At thirteen years old you can be run over by a car and breath the air they pollute, but you can't drive one.

     You can lose your favorite teacher to budget cuts, eat disgusting cafeteria food, spend hours each day learning useless information you know won't help you in the future, but you can't serve on a school board or even vote for the people who make the choices that will shape both your education and future.
     You can lose the woods you love to play in to land developers. You can watch as older people use up natural resources and trash the world you'll inherit. You can tell them to stop, but why would they listen?
     At thirteen, you're old enough to get on facebook and twitter and spread your opinions. You're old enough to attend protests. You're old enough to collect signatures for a petition. You're old enough to look adults straight in the eye, speak calmly, and make them listen. 
     You're old enough to make a difference.

Adults and Authority



Milgram shock machine

     Recently I was on a neighborhood campout with many neighborhood teenagers and a few adult leaders. Everybody's stuff was piled into one trailer. When we were setting up camp I looked in the trailer for my sleeping bag. I didn't find it, but there was another dark blue sleeping bag in a black case, just like mine. I began asking around to see if anybody had taken mine by mistake. I looked in the leaders' tent and found a dark blue sleeping bag rolled out with a black case not far from it. I took it and left the other one in its place.
    A few hours later, one of the leaders came into the tent I shared with several other girls. She was holding the sleeping bag and said, "Eliza, this is yours."
     "No it isn't. That one has a yellow drawstring cord one the case. Mine doesn't."
     We argued for a little while. At first, she has plausible counterarguments such as, "I watched my husband pack that." But before long, her only argument was "Because, that's my sleeping bag. Because, that's my sleeping bag."
     My whole tent was listening. "Pearl", a girl who has lived in my neighborhood for as long as I can remember, gone to the same church, and sat next to me in CTE last year, took the leader's side. "Eliza," she said, "That's your sleeping bag." Other girls I'd known for several years agreed with her.
     I don't really blame Pearl, or any of the other girls. The leader had two qualities going for her: she was an adult with authority. Almost anyone will take the word of an adult over that of a teenager. Besides, people are naturally submissive in the face of authority. A psychologist named Stanley Milgram proved this in an interesting experiment. The purpose of his experiment was to study authority but was camoflauged as a teaching experiment.
     A volunteer was instructed by a person in a white coat to ask a student several questions. If the student answered incorrectly, they were supposed to shock them. In reality, the "student" was in on the experiment and felt no pain. They put on a good show, though-crying out, begging them to stop, even faking heart attacks. The white coated officials ordered the volunteers to continue. Did they? In most cases, yes. After all, these were ordinary, good people. Good people don't rebel against authority. Teenagers rebel against authority.
     This experiment wasn't confined to a specific group of people. It was preformed in America, Australia, Germany, and Italy among other places. Both male and female subjects were used. Most of them must have been good, obedient people. They somehow managed to convince themselves that the "students" deserved cruelty, or that they were not responsible. Prejudice isn't that different from electric shocks. As long as you can convince yourself it's okay, you'll go along with it without protest.
     In case you're wondering, I didn't trade sleeping bags with the leader. The one I used disappeared when we broke camp. I decided that since she'd made such a fuss, she could have it. Maybe there were three similar sleeping bags and we both were right, but somebody else had taken the wrong one. I took home the one she'd called mine and my parents verified that it wasn't ours. I haven't gotten mine back yet.

The Other Side of Ageism

     I've been thinking a lot about the other side of age discrimination-ageism against older people. Particularly against the elderly. It's sadly common for people to think elderly people are useless or a burden to society. And if you ask me, that's just stupid. Some of my favorite people are in their seventies, like my grandparents, for example. What's not to like? They bring presents, paint pictures, talk about all the cool books they read, take pictures with out looking, own cool dogs, tell war stories, and bake cookies on top of it all. I'm sure I'm not the only one out there with awesome grandparents.
     As for the stereotypes about old age making you stupid? Next time you hear that, look at who's talking. Sheesh, have some respect from your elders. One of the smartest people I ever met was my health teacher, Ms. Rallison*. She'd been a teacher for a long time as well as doing some other jobs. Not only did she really know what she was talking about, but she knew how to make it interesting and proufound to a classroom full of teenagers. Not everybody can do that. Then there's my Sunday school teacher, Sister Rider*.  Like Ms. Rallison, she's really smart and fun. She doesn't just lecture, she tells stories and jokes***. Plus, she wears cool clothes and brings cookies almost every week.
     Bottom line, people are great. Age doesn't make a difference.
*I don't use real names online.
**Same as above
***Ha! Made you look.
Note: I'm going on another no internet vacation. I'll post as soon as I get back on Friday.

Just to Clear Things Up

     A reader has informed me that some of my posts are being interpreted as jeunist, or anitadult. I have nothing against adults, I'm just trying to point out that teenagers are often misjudged. I do not believe that anybody is superior to anybody else because of their age. I'll try my hardest to avoid appearing so in further posts. I like the way you said it, Calantha: "We all just have different points of view from where we are in life."

As An Old Dead Guy Said...

                    
     Everybody say hi to Mr. Grumpy. He's been dead for almost three thousand years. He was a writer back when he was alive in Ancient Greece. Here's what he wrote:
"I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivulous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words...when I was young, I was taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly disrespectful and impatient of restraint."
Hmm...no hope? Mr. Grumpy, or Hesiod, as he is more commonly called, said that way back in the 8th century BC. Somehow, that frivulous, reckless generation survived. As did the next frivulous, reckless one and the next, all the way up to this one.
     Nowadays, I hear a lot of people saying practically the same sort of thing Hesiod did. Somehow, I don't think the world is doomed quite yet.

Do Our Opinions Not Matter?

     Dale Price is  being officially  called the World's Most Embarrassing Dad. Each day for the entire school year, he stood outside in a different costume to wave at the school bus carrying his sixteen-year-old son, Rain.
     Suddenly, my parents don't seem that bad anymore.
     I read a newspaper article about Price's antics and how they have gone viral. The reporter interviewed Price and the bus driver, but not Rain or any of the other students on the bus. That seems more than a little strange to me. This is Rain's dad. He's being affected by this more than anybody. Isn't his insight the most important? Had I written this article, I would have interviewed Rain first, then his father, a classmate, his mother, and then the bus driver.
     Sadly, very few adults seem to care about the opinions of young people. We're here, we have our own ideas, and we matter. So why are we never heard?

Teens Can Invent, Too

     Popsicles. Cancer screening. The toy truck. Sign language translator. The toddler-proof safety gate. Non-reusable syringes. Earmuffs. Some of these are little inventions that we use each day for entertainment or necessity, while others save lives. But what do they all have in common? In case you're too lazy to raise your eyes to the header, I'll tell you: They were all invented by kids.
     I'm using the term "kids" loosely here. Elizabeth Nathan and Gabrielle Pollack (syringe) were nineteen, technically adults. Ryan Patterson (translator), Chester Greenwood (earmuffs), Ben and Janet Song (cancer screening) were all teenagers when they came up with their inventions. The rest were invented by thirteen-and-unders.
     Like many of their adult counterparts, these young inventors got their ideas from simple everyday experiences. Frank Epperson left a drink with a stirring stick out overnight. Ryan Patterson was sitting in his local Burger King, watching a man translate sign language into English. A thought became an idea, an idea became an invention, an invention changed the way we all live our lives, one way or another. Just because they're young doesn't mean they can't make an impact. And that doesn't mean you can't either.