Saturday, November 15, 2008

The end of adolescence?

When does childhood end and adulthood begin?

Honestly, I felt like a child until my second year of teaching. It wasn't until I had my own classroom that I felt like an adult. When I was the beginning teacher, I felt powerless.

Newt Gingrich thinks adolescence is overrated:

http://www.businessweek.com/print/magazine/content/08_45/b4107085289974.htm


The costs of this social experiment have been horrendous. For the poor who most need to make money, learn seriously, and accumulate resources, adolescence has helped crush their future. By trapping poor people in bad schools, with no work opportunities and no culture of responsibility, we have left them in poverty, in gangs, in drugs, and in irresponsible sexual activity. As a result, we have ruined several generations of poor people who might have made it if we had provided a different model of being young.

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