The Next Generation: Really?

March 4, 2016

A remembrance of the attack on Pearl Harbor came to mind while reading a recent pity-party-in-print offered recently by a Petoskey High School student in the "Next Generation" issue a few weeks back.

The prospects of the teen’s grandparents’ generation, millions of whom received government-paid excursions to the South Pacific or North Africa as high school graduation trips, were in stark contrast to what’s in store for her class. Indeed, some got to go skydiving, but their bosses in the military usually required them to carry a rifle when they jumped. The teenager’s essay suggested that never in history has the yoke of life hung so heavily on youth as it does today. Anxiety and depression were cited as epidemic afflictions, but some statistical clarity is in order.

It was noted that "20 percent of teens experience depression before they reach adulthood," but in 2014, the National Institute of Mental Health reported that 11 percent is the actual figure. The same NIMH study of 67,901 of subjects noted that 9.4 percent of respondents between the ages of 12 and 17 reported illicit drug use in the previous month, and that 6.1 percent admitted to binge drinking during the same period. While polishing your SAT word list, kids, look up the meaning of "depressant," will you? That said, consider too, oh put-upon teens, that"¦ - you are the first generation to have had the benefit of special education services as mandated by law; if anyone in your family needed it before 1975, they were out of luck.

- you literally have more career options than any previous generation; your parents and grandparents could not be bloggers, write apps or achieve fame via YouTube videos. In the course of your lives, many you will have jobs that do not exist yet.

- you more than any previous generation have the freedom to express your sexuality, and in case you care to change it – your gender identity – these options as were never as realistic as they are now .

- you rant that when you "don’t get an A on (your) AP test," just as a TV notes that "Orange Is the New Black," you seem to think that a B- is the new F. When previous generations earned grades they were unhappy with, they applied themselves, rather than lunge for Prozac.

- you have the ability to remain in touch with families across the world via technology, be it email, text, Skype or Facetime, while others relied on hand-written letters and collect phone calls.

- you stress about college, but Michigan State University has more than 200 degree options to choose from, Michigan more than 250, and at Harvard you could major (concentrate) in subjects as obtuse as Folklore or Celtic Languages. You also have more funding options for such pursuits than ever; taking advantage of them might leave you with some debt, but will also leave you with more options. Ask your economics teacher to explain "opportunity cost" to you if this isn’t clear.

- you complain about stresses via social media, but you pine for such online connections like Sylvester pined for Tweety Bird, so if it truly bothers you, unplug and read a book, but stop whining about what someone puts on your Facebook wall. Who forced you to have one?

A counselor in the essay, "noticed an increase in student’s self-reporting increased stress levels," which should not surprise anyone. This is the generation that invented the "selfie." They crave attention, including that afforded to them when they affect distress, but can’t seem to pay attention to anything or anyone else, as the author’s reference to Adderall reminds us.

If you honestly consider your lot as high school students so awful, consider the stability of your status: You cannot get fired from high school, though your teachers can. If you get kicked out of a private school, you can – – in fact you must – – attend a public school. If a teacher gets fired from a private school, the local public school does not have to hire that teacher. When there’s the chance of a major snowstorm, you hope that your obligations for the next day will be cancelled, though your parents probably don’t hope that way, especially if they own a business. School is actually a quite reasonable endeavor: Sit down, listen and watch, write things down and study them. This is one reason graduate work is an appealing notion to some; school is easier than work.

These observations are offered by a teacher who enjoys working with teenagers and for twenty years has been trying to help others learn, and who has learned this: If being a teenager is thought to be an overwhelming burden, the three score years to follow will not be easier. You might find school to ask a lot of you, but be thankful for that option. If you find school such an unbearable yoke, talk to someone who endured a little more than Tumblr while negotiating the task: her name is Malala Yousafzai.

David Allen over the course of twenty years, has taught teenagers on two continents in public, private and international schools. He is in the Liberal Arts division at Interlochen Arts Academy and has degrees from Syracuse, the University of New Hampsire and Harvard.