Being a high school student was an absurdly frustrating experience. A lot of the time, adults really do not know how to interact with teenagers, and definitely do not know what to expect from them. Adultism frames young people as inferior or incomplete versions of adults, but this looks different depending on how young the people in question are. When faced with elementary aged young people, less adults feel threatened, because the dominant narrative is of children as moldable, impressionable, and (if you know what you’re doing) manageable. The discourse around teens, on the other hand, is that of recklessness and unpredictability, and most adults do NOT like feeling out of control (especially when it comes to young people). On the other hand, teens are soon to be adults (at which point they will be considered worthy of respect). This, for me, played out as an exhausting and infuriating back-and-forth in which adults both wanted me to act “mature” and responsible, and did not give me any room to prove that I was.
One particularly frustrating case in which I felt power being taken from me happened when I was a freshman in high school (so, 14). I had seen a video of a club that existed in a neighboring town’s high school, and wanted to bring a chapter to mine. I emailed the principal and made an appointment with my guidance counselor, who praised my initiative and was so excited to have a freshman taking on leadership. I then began the process of starting up a club...emailing and calling the national organization to find out the requirements of/supports for starting a chapter, finding a teacher to “advise,” collecting signatures of people who would be interested in joining if the club existed, etc. I put in a lot of work and felt really passionate about the club at the time, and was excited to be making progress. One day, my mom came to me and told me she couldn’t believe I hadn’t said anything about the club being approved. Confused, I told her that I hadn’t gotten any replies from administration yet, and she showed me the high school’s webpage. The club was not only being promoted, but apparently a meeting time had already been set. I was so frustrated to find out that way, and felt that the grown adults at my high school took advantage of my hard work, only to remove me from the conversation when they wanted control. If my mom hadn’t seen that announcement, I wouldn’t have even known the club (that I put so much into) was meeting. I remembered the guidance counselor praising my leadership, and was infuriated to realize that my voice/power wasn’t actually valued, but exploited. Compounding that belittling feeling of adultism with the racism and other forms of oppression the students at my internship experience, especially given the disparity between the student body and faculty, means that they are made to be essentially powerless, while also being told that they should be responsible. azxcvbhnjmklsdfghjkl; doesn’t it just make you want to scream
here's a tune
One particularly frustrating case in which I felt power being taken from me happened when I was a freshman in high school (so, 14). I had seen a video of a club that existed in a neighboring town’s high school, and wanted to bring a chapter to mine. I emailed the principal and made an appointment with my guidance counselor, who praised my initiative and was so excited to have a freshman taking on leadership. I then began the process of starting up a club...emailing and calling the national organization to find out the requirements of/supports for starting a chapter, finding a teacher to “advise,” collecting signatures of people who would be interested in joining if the club existed, etc. I put in a lot of work and felt really passionate about the club at the time, and was excited to be making progress. One day, my mom came to me and told me she couldn’t believe I hadn’t said anything about the club being approved. Confused, I told her that I hadn’t gotten any replies from administration yet, and she showed me the high school’s webpage. The club was not only being promoted, but apparently a meeting time had already been set. I was so frustrated to find out that way, and felt that the grown adults at my high school took advantage of my hard work, only to remove me from the conversation when they wanted control. If my mom hadn’t seen that announcement, I wouldn’t have even known the club (that I put so much into) was meeting. I remembered the guidance counselor praising my leadership, and was infuriated to realize that my voice/power wasn’t actually valued, but exploited. Compounding that belittling feeling of adultism with the racism and other forms of oppression the students at my internship experience, especially given the disparity between the student body and faculty, means that they are made to be essentially powerless, while also being told that they should be responsible. azxcvbhnjmklsdfghjkl; doesn’t it just make you want to scream
here's a tune
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