Gingrich: End ‘Adolescence’
While we are talking solutions and moving forward, I believe that we need to listen to good ideas on both sides of the aisle - including Newt Gingrich, who wrote an excellent piece in Business Week on ending the concept of ‘adolescence’. This is a concept that I have spoken on myself in forums and with friends. Our youth need to learn responsibility early because adolescence is a trap that many can not seem to find their way out of - even into their 30’s.
Newt Gingrich makes so many good points below that it is difficult to pull out “money quotes”. Read it all…
It’s time to declare the end of adolescence. As a social institution, it’s been a failure. The proof is all around us: 19% of eighth graders, 36% of tenth graders, and 47% of twelfth graders say they have used illegal drugs, according to a study by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the University of Michigan. One of every four girls has a sexually transmitted disease, suggests a recent study for the Centers for Disease Control. A methamphetamine epidemic among the young is destroying lives, families, and communities. And American students are learning at a frighteningly slower rate than Chinese and Indian students.
The solution is dramatic and unavoidable: We have to end adolescence as a social experiment. We tried it. It failed. It’s time to move on. Returning to an earlier, more successful model of children rapidly assuming the roles and responsibilities of adults would yield enormous benefit to society.
Prior to the 19th century, it’s fair to say that adolescence did not exist. Instead, there was virtually universal acceptance that puberty marked the transition from childhood to young adulthood. Whether with the Bar Mitzvah and Bat Mitzvah ceremony of the Jewish faith or confirmation in the Catholic Church or any hundreds of rites of passage in societies around the planet, it was understood you were either a child or a young adult.
In the U.S., this principle of direct transition from the world of childhood play to the world of adult work was clearly established at the time of the Revolutionary War. Benjamin Franklin was an example of this kind of young adulthood. At age 13, Franklin finished school in Boston, was apprenticed to his brother, a printer and publisher, and moved immediately into adulthood.
John Quincy Adams attended Leiden University in Holland at 13 and at 14 was employed as secretary and interpreter by the American Ambassador to Russia. At 16 he was secretary to the U.S. delegation during the negotiations with Britain that ended the Revolution.
[...] To regain those benefits, we must develop accelerated learning systems that peg the rate of academic progress to the student’s pace and ability to absorb the material, making education more efficient.
Adolescence was invented in the 19th century to enable middle-class families to keep their children out of sweatshops. But it has degenerated into a process of enforced boredom and age segregation that has produced one of the most destructive social arrangements in human history: consigning 13-year-old males to learning from 15-year-old males.
UNDERMINING COMMUNITIES
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.
[...]The fact is, most young people want to be challenged and given real responsibility. They want to be treated like young men and women, not old children. So consider this simple proposal: High school students who can graduate a year early get the 12th year’s cost of schooling as an automatic scholarship to any college or technical school they want to attend. If they graduate two years early, they get two years of scholarships. At no added cost to taxpayers, we would give students an incentive to study as hard as they can and maximize the speed at which they learn.
Once we decide to engage young people in real life, doing real work, earning real money, and thereby acquiring real responsibility, we can transform being young in America. And our nation will become more competitive in the processIt’s time to change this—to shift to serious work, learning, and responsibility at age 13 instead of age 30. In other words, replace adolescence with young adulthood. But hastening that transition requires integrating learning into life and work.
None of this means that once the child turns 13 that one is calling for them to go off into the world alone. However, they should be given more responsibility and be trained to be a responsible adult. We can not underestimate the importance of family involvement in the upbringing of children.
Filed under: Changing World
Been saying this for the longest. There was an interview a few years back (maybe 7 or 8 years ago) on NPR with an author who wrote about the end of adolescence. It (adolsecent) is an artificial construct. And it benefits the corporations, for the kids have lots of disposable income which they spend on artificial markets (i.e., the items purchased by the teen market–music/pop culture music and trinkets, and a lot of clothes.).
What adolescence does do is propagandize the youth get young people addicted to consumerism and, of course, soon thereafter credit card debt. That’s a good thing–from a corporate POV. The author said that these arrested development “kids” are allowed (expected) to engage in the most adult of behavior (i.e., sexual intimacy) without having to consider the responsibilities that go along with it. This culture encourages the corruption of the morals of the youth.
What would be needed to solve the situation would be one: make it MUCH EASIER for young people to marry. It is not practical–nor from the Sunnah–to think that most people don’t need to get married until their mid-late 20’s. Secondly, the education system would need to be restructured. Most people are not intellectuals and have no need to be in high school (where a lot of the corruption and social indoctrination takes place) until the age of 18.
The average child (assuming he wasn’t getting hypnotized by the cyclops 4 hours a day) could learn his basic academic skills (good reading/writing skills, math thru algebra/geometry, basic logic and critical thinking skills, and a general knowledge of history/geography/political science) by the 8th grade. After that, he could have two years to focus in a trade–whether low tech, high tech, or business. (Highschool is a joke–and what most people learn in those 4 year bastions of decadence and programming called “college” could be learned in no more than 2 years if the students had decent academic and thinking skills before entering.) In that way, a person could get married (and support a family) by the age of 16 or 17.
As for those who go are on the college track, there is no reason–if people raised their children differently–the students couldn’t start their university education at 15 and condense their schooling into 2 years. Those who wish to go into more intellectual/academic fields or those that require more study (like, advanced engineering, medicine, etc.) would have to go as long as necessary. But that is a small minority of the population.
Of course, all of this is a moot point in a globalized economy. Modestly or moderately educated Americans are simply not going to be able to compete. The modestly educated cannot compete with the folks south of the border and the moderately can’t with the volume of (hungry–literally– and ambitious) folks getting churned out of the Chinese and Indian universities. If i were an American nationalist, i’d say that Pat Buchanan is about as close to a solution as any. But we all know that he is ridiculed in the liberal media.
As-Salaamu ‘alaikum,
I completely agree with this. It is not only a case of “consigning 13-year-old males to learning from 15-year-old males”, but of forcing young adults into situations where they are open to abuse from both adults who are supposed to “care” for them, and from others of the same age or slightly higher.
Of course, the USA has already taken one step on the road to this, by trying juvenile offenders in adult courts and sentencing them to life without parole as early as 13 in some cases, but if teenagers are to have adult responsibilities, they need to have adult rights as well.
How refreshingly astute. This is (mostly) what the homeschooling/unschooling movement has been all about.
Love and Peace
To touch on Swarth Moor’s comment, especially the line, “Most people are not intellectuals and have no need to be in high school…”, I thought I’d briefly describe Singapore’s educational model, which is fairly different from the US model. (It’s based on the UK model, but I don’t know that the UK has the same system.)
Children begin going to school with a two-year kindergarten program, followed by a six-year primary school program. In the last half of the sixth year, all primary school students take a comprehensive exam called the PSLE (Primary School Leaving Exam), which determines both what type of secondary school they can go to and what stream of education they will be admitted into. (The PSLE, rightly or wrongly, is a very big deal here, and can significantly affect a child’s future educational path. My problem with it is that some kids are late bloomers, and they may lose out.)
Secondary school education lasts only four or five years. In this time, kids study for various “O” or “N” level exams, which normally take up to two years to prepare for. Based on the number of “O” levels a child receives, they have three possible paths: junior college, polytechnics, and ITEs. A junior college student takes the next level of academic courses (”A” levels) over two years before moving on to a university. Polytechnic students had fewer “O”levels than a junior college student, and are taught subjects such as business, engineering and the sciences over three years. (Better poly students may eventually transfer to the universities as well.) ITE (Institute of Technical Education) students did not do as well as the poly students in secondary school, and receive a one or two year technical education. (I will say, even the ITE schools have excellent facilities.)
Overall, the system here seems to work quite well, although, as I mentioned above, I do have one major issue with the PSLE. Essentially, high school here ends by the tenth grade; if you have the aptitude you can go on to college, if not then you’re given a more practical education that will give you skills to begin working by the time you’re 18-20. (Of course, for teenage boys, there’s also their national service (i.e., military) duty for two years (with reserve duty till they turn 40), which can push their education back a little.)
One other side note: all students here, through junior college at least, wear uniforms.
My husband was talking to me about this imaginary concept.
I expressed my concern about the “adolescent” crowd because they are forced into dual roles. They are treated like children at home, but some of them appear to be adults in the real world.
Additional issues include:
1. a contradicting society which tells them not to have sex, yet markets sex to them constantly.
2. lack of realistic goals
3. lack of financial eduation
4. being rewarded for what should already be expected of them
This is like the 3rd thing I’m reading from Newt that I totally agree with! I am getting worried.
At the age of 10 when our children are required to pray, this is the beginning of the end of adolescence. By the time they are ‘aware’ this is the end of this adolescent construct. Indeed this is harming poor people the most as they have persons in their households who aren’t producing - and it is not legal for them to produce income.
If they do away with this - the landscape of drug dealing, high school drop outs, teen age pregnancy, and recreational drug use will be reduced greatly.
Every year after the 6th grade is basically not much. They drag the day on, the year on to keep this system afloat but when I look at my unmotivated 135 and 140 IQ 6th and 7th grade boys and there is not much I can say to them except “hang in there.” I hated school after the 8th grade and am just grateful that I graduated. It is a waste of one’s life energy.
We are a nation of mediocrity
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“Every year after the 6th grade is basically not much. They drag the day on, the year on to keep this system afloat but when I look at my unmotivated 135 and 140 IQ 6th and 7th grade boys and there is not much I can say to them except “hang in there.” I hated school after the 8th grade and am just grateful that I graduated. It is a waste of one’s life energy.”
That was basically me growing up. after kindergarten the school wanted me to skip a two grades instead my parents said no and from then on school was a place to hang with my friends. I was a straight A student yet i didn’t have work at all. It was too easy.
Around 7th grade i skipped classes regularly and sometimes only went to class once or twice a semester and I remember one time going to class and taking a test yet I haven’t been to class in three months and I still passed the test with C grade. Imagine that. three months with no schooling but yet I knew enough to pass a test. if i did go to class regularly I would only gotten A. I figured right then and there school wasn’t for me it was a waste of my time.
I learned more out of school then in school. There definitely needs to be reconstructing of the school system. It doesn’t prepare you for the future or teach you anything useful. It’s just memorization and regurgitation.
@ Brooke–EXACTLY!
I am thrilled by Newt Gingrich’s call for an end to adolescence. I discuss the ramifications of doing so in my recently published book, “Parenting the Guardian Class: Validating Spirited Youth, Ending Adolescence, and Renewing America’s Greatness.” So good to see this thinking beginning to catch on and, hopefully, as a nation we’ll begin moving in this direction. Youth are fully capable of being what I call “guardians” of our republic. The ancient Greeks understood this - which I explain - and it is time that we do as well. Thank you for posting his article.
Sadly, I could not disagree more with the feelings espoused by the comments posted here. I’ll say my piece briefly:
Humans have the longest childhood of all animals because we have so very much to learn in order to become full adults. The lengthening of adolescence has been happening over the past couple of centuries, in part because the amount of information that an adult needs in our society keeps getting more and more complex and in depth.
The fact that schools fail our children by not teaching them well, and the fact that corporations take advantage of our children by marketing specifically to them, are not sufficient evidence that adolescence needs to be “done away with.” Rather, it’s evidence that we ought to be taking more care with how we’re training our young during their adolescence.
The one thing that I don’t understand about Mr. Gingrich’s article is: is he implying we ought to lower the age of sexual consent, as well? Is he implying we ought to do away with child labor laws? Our youth, no matter how much responsibility and concomittant privilege they are given, remain vulnerable to predation by adults who don’t have their best interests at heart. Adolescence as a legal construct ought to serve to protect them while they are learning.
I agree, though, that we ought to be giving a closer eye towards training adolescents to understand responsibility, and that in order to really learn they actually have to experience responsibility and accept consequences. But I think it is to the good of society if we prevent the very worst things from happening to them while they are learning.
I don’t know what to say about these school systems these days. When I was going to school, one could see the benefits of public education. Now,I’m not sure what to say about it. Schooling in 2008 has become erratic.
Most times, we blame the students for their failure of education, but some of the teachers and even some school boards are just as at fault with them as they are. I’ve been to my Neph’s former school where they were being educated from old ,dilapidated books( depending on the class they took), a few teachers that I seen there would actually come to school looking like they were coming out of bed, just very unprofessional for a teacher( if i’m lying, i’m flying), .It also seemed that some of those teachers weren’t really interested in their class and some of them seemed not know their material as well as they should have.At times, my siblings and I would have to correct their assignments.
Then there is the school board. I was looking at the news where some kids were sent to a closed school to be educated because of the mold found in their prior school. Many of them were angry because it took the board days and and even months to respond. I couldn’t blame them and it didn’t make any sense, but they don’t care about their students. They’ll sit there and tell the parents to express their concerns to them, but they don’t answer. The Board was tested when one of the parents wanted to complain about a dress code policy. They claimed that they called her, but They lied about it.( Duh! haven’t they heard of Recycle Bins ( far as she e-mail tand /or caller ID’s?) This is the reason why those poor babies/teachers had to endure all of that time surrounded by that poison.
This isalso part of the reason why these schools are failing. The kids many not be driven to do their assignments, but they also have teachers who are only there for paychecks( and boy can you tell the ones who are there for that because their kids don’t learn anything) and a school board who will not work with their community. How on earth will they have a great school system when they do crap like this?. Not long ago, I’ve(,like may others, seen the unfortunate result of what a disjointed school system will do to the people: There was a case in Clayton County( GA) where their accreditation was revoked because the school members were severly corrupt.they violated many of their laws. I feel really bad for those kids and the people of that county because of their selfishness!They should have been thrown in jail for that. It not only affected the kids education, but it also affected property values.No logical person would want to move to a county with a questionable educational system.
Although my sister has lucked up on the school that her sons attended she thinking about homeschooling them, especially her oldest son. He’ll be in the 6th grade,but the school that he would have to attend have been on the ” bad schools” list for years and have been on the news twice.
God knows I thought that school sucked, but I will say this much about it, it was more unified and functional than it is today. It’s ironic. I said that I’m going to college for my personal benefit an, but the more I look at this school system the more I would like to be homeschooling friendly. Some say that I may be taking their social skills from a kid. I don’t know , but if my nephs were my kids, I would be home teaching them because the school system is failing them. I wouldn’t be surprised if my sisters county lose it’s accreditation. The school board is so dysfunctional that it’s pathetic. It’s just a matter of time before it happens.