The conversation that brought me back from hiatus

You may have noticed I've not been in the writerly way for a while.  Turns out that full-time teaching and grad school topped off with student teaching makes for an exhausted RMS.  I've had things to say, but I've mostly been saying them to the pot of soup cooking on the stove, or the towel rack.  But the other day I had a conversation with a colleague at work that had the rusty gears in my head turning for quite some time.  It started out about Twilight, but ended up about so much more.

She wanted to know if, in my professional opinion, I thought Twilight was appropriate for her 8th grade daughter.  After letting me know that her daughter is not terribly mature, she let me weigh in.  I didn't get all Twi-ranty because, well really, that wasn't the point now was it?  And I came down firmly on Twilight's side.  Not because it's a great piece of literature, but because it is a largely innocuous and incredibly popular one.  By this point every tween and teen in America has read it (or so it seems to me) and to deny her the chance to participate in the popular culture phenomenon of her adolescence is just cruel and necessary.

As we continued talking it became clear that her mother's concern was really sex and drugs.  Not a problem, since Twilight is, after all, abstinence porn.  Turns out that at the root of her strict policing of her teen daughter's reading habits, was a very real fear of books being a source of negative peer pressure.

"Sometimes, I think, that they read about it and they they want to try it.  Right?" she asked me.

I've written before on how I think the exact opposite is true, and that was the conversation I delved into.  About how teens read about things that they would never do because they want to understand them.  About how drinking, drugs, and sex are a real part of the world.  About credibility.  About how the world is a place full of dangers and I'd rather my kids read about them than experience them first-hand.  And finally, about how if anything is going to send your by-all-accounts-good-and-decent-kid down the rabbit hole it's going to be her peer group, not the library.  In the end, it's about building your relationship with your teen.  About having that conversation about myth and reality, fact and fiction, fun and dangerous fun.  And about never turning away from that conversation, no matter how much you may want to.

What do you think?

On credibility

In this article on Locus Magazine’s website, Doctorow (the author of Little Brother) discusses why young adult novels should have sex (or drinking, or drug use, or mild anarchy . . . ).  His argument is simple and elegant: because teens already do these things.   Doctorow posits that if YA fiction only portrays rule-bending, authority-defying, sex-drugs-and-rock-and-roll-having behavior as having immediate and dire consequences, then it will lose its credibility.  After all, real life certainly does not work that way.  In fact, a little rebellion can be a good thing, as we test our boundaries, form our personal ethics, and develop our identities.  There is a certain amount of trial and error involved in growing up.

We champion literature because, as C.S.Lewis said, “In reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself.”  Experience by proxy allows us to leap the confines of our daily existence.  It allows us to empathize with the stranger, to understand those we may never meet.  It broadens our world-view and opens our mind.  If we’d rather teens learn and “experience” the more unsavory aspects of  adult life through literature than through action, it’s vitally important that that literature honestly reflect reality.  Teens might read what rings false, but they certainly will not connect to it.  Furthermore, a literature devoid of reality, full of schmaltzy cautionary tales may well push our children to dangerous behaviors, as they seek to separate fact from myth through their own experience.  If reading about risky behaviors (which they know exist) will keep kids from engaging in them, or overindulging in them, then by all means - bring on the prose!

For their own good . . .

Ellen Hopkins, the author of Glass, along with Crank an account of meth addiction, was barred from lecturing at a middle school, after some parents objected to her book.  Since its middle-school appropriateness was under review, school officials decided that her visit itself was inappropriate.  Honestly, that seems fine, especially when one reads the book’s reviews.  While they are all very positive, the editorial reviews for the book place it firmly in the high school realm with School Library Journal recommending the book for grades 9 and up, Publishers Weekly for ages 14 and up,  and VOYA for “older teens.” Yet, Hopkins was not allowed to move her talk to the high school, where no parent had objected to her work, and where she’d find a ready, willing, and appropriate audience. 
 
It always amazes me when parents of teens speak honestly and passionately about protecting their children from the horrors of the world by sealing them in, all too temporary and illusory, rose-colored bubbles.  When we ignore issues such as drug addiction, sexual assault, school and street violence, racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia, we do not protect our children from them - we, instead, leave them very vulnerable to them.  All too often, instead of educating and preparing our children to face a world full of hazards, adults end up pretending these issues don’t exist, or exist only for other kids in other places.  It’s naive at best and incredible destructive at worst.  Here we have an eloquent writer and speaker, willing to tackle some of these tough issues and she is turned away because some parents are afraid to admit that their little ones may be getting into drugs, sex, alcohol, you name it.  Instead of facing that fear, they are ducking their heads into the sand.

Play it Again, Sam

Ahhhhh the Youth of Today.  A mess, aren't they?  They prefer texting to talking, online to outside, MySpace to the library.  They are distracted, unorganized, lazy, and disrespectful.  They can't form a complete thought, never mind a complete sentence.  They abuse language and ignore the rules of grammar and discourse.  They have no stamina or deep interest in anything.  They are so fixated on social networking and their cell phones that they aren't learning how to cope and communicate in the real world.  They are coddled and spoiled.  Yet they are exposed to more danger than ever before.

Sound familiar?  If not, then you probably never talk to anyone who works with kids - teens in specific.  I hear variations on this lament nearly daily, from colleagues, grad students, friends, my own mouth.  As someone who rides the digital native/digital immigrant line I can see where everyone is coming from.  Afterall, it's the same place they've been coming from for 2800 years:

I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on the frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words.

When I was a boy, we were taught to be discrete and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise and impatient of restraint.
--- Hesiod, Eighth Century B.C.

We thought it was the Youth of Today that were the downfall of civilization and culture.  Turns out it was the Youth of Twenty-Eight Hundred Years Ago that started it all.  Today's kids running around on the internet, playing in the street, talking back in text-speak . . . just the latest in a long history of Youth vs Establishment.

At one point everything is new and with new technologies and new ideas come changes - sometimes cosmetic, sometimes fundamental - to the ways we interact, learn, express ourselves, and navigate the world.  Priorities shift, new information changes old ways of thinking, concepts of what is rude, healthy, or safe reflect these changes.  All of which can be very uncomfortable to the old guard.  Especially to those whose ideas of right and wrong are firmly entrenched in the Truths they were taught.

The internet has had a profound impact on our culture.  It has changed the way we participate, socialize, and organize.  It has shifted the seats of power and influence, and our perceptions of public and private.  As Danah Boyd, of UC Berkeley, wrote in her excellent paper, Why Youth Heart Social Network Sites:

In today’s society, there is a push towards privacy.  It is assumed that people are public individuals who deserve the right to privacy rather than the other way around.  With an elevated and idealized view of privacy, we often forget the reasons that enslaved peoples desperately wished for access to public life.  By allowing us to have a collective experience with people who are both like and unlike us, public life validates the reality that we are experiencing.  We are doing our youth a disservice if we believe that we can protect them from the world by limiting their access to public life.  They must enter that arena, make mistakes, and learn from them.  Our role as adults is not to be their policemen, but to be their guide.

The new isn't necessarily bad, but it is different.  What makes a good friend may not change - a person who listens and hears you, who stands up for you and with you, who is trustworthy, kind and with whom you have fun.  But the ways these characteristics manifest themselves may change drastically with new ways of communicating and new social networks.  Sometimes to the point of not being recognizable to people not immersed in the new technologies.

As people who work with teens, it is important that we try to keep up, admit it when we haven't, and learn instead of judge.  New is not bad, old is not good (and neither is the reverse true), and the Youth of Today are destroying the world, just like they always have.

I Eat Youth-Owned Culture for Breakfast

In this month's issue of Wired, besides an in-depth look at Craigslist, and an article on "good enough" tech, there was an interesting piece on education reform. In, Revenge of the Nerds, Daniel Roth posits that if we really want to reform education, and create schools that work, then we need to "make them geekier." If the school culture is geek, then the kids who excel are the cool kids and every kid wants to be cool (or, you know, not cornered in dark hallways or vaguely threatened during every passing). Viola - excellence!

Now I could really get into how making schools geekier is a fine idea, but that actual education reform needs to encompass a heck of a lot more than that. How a geekier school doesn't exactly address the myriad issues facing many underachieving kids such as poverty, hunger, homelessness, drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence, lack of adequate space and time . . . but I won't because I'm sure that Roth didn't mean his one page fluff piece to be the end all and be all of modern education reform. I'm pretty sure that he realizes that citing the success of two charter schools (which can, and do, cull their student populations from the mainstream, and which have the option of expelling students who aren't working out. Those students end up back at their real public school which is now devoid of all those geeky star-achievers that were drawn to Awesome Charter School . . . see where I'm going with this?) does not a workable plan for reform make. I trust that Roth and the educators he talked with just want us to think about geekifying schools as part of overall education reform that works neighborhood by neighborhood to improve the overall lives and health of the children there.

But I'm not going to talk about that.

What I will comment on is the use of one quote from Tom Vander Ark, a private-equity manager with High Tech Schools, one of the charters mentioned in the article. His solution to geekifying schools (and, thus, saving them) is destroying youth culture. "A big high school has a youth-owned culture. You've got to break that." Roth's reaction? "The result: One hundred percent of High Tech graduates get into college."

Cause and Effect.

Elementary, my dear Watson.

Huh. Really?

Hey kids! You know that big consolidated high school? The one that all the kids who didn't get into (or got kicked out of) the charters go to? The one with serious financial issues? With all the new, inexperienced teachers? The only school in the area to offer state and federally mandated services to English Language Learners and students with special needs? The one with class sizes of 30-40?

Yeah, that one! Did you know it's failing because of you? Once we destroy the youth-owned culture of that school all of you will get into college. Rad, huh?

A youth-owned culture is not a bad thing. Youth are not a monolith, believe it or not. A youth-owned culture will mean very different things at different times and in different places. Teens can be creative, compassionate, loving, involved, intellectual, open-minded, driven, organized, excited, artistic, literary, passionate, informed, and supportive. They can also be cruel, petty, lazy, uninvolved, violent, dismissive, pre-occupied, close-minded, and intolerant.

Instead of working to stamp out youth-owned culture, perhaps we can work to engender a positive one. I want the teens I work with excited and involved in school. I want them helping to run the show. I want them to feel supported in this ownership.

I think that Vander Ark and Roth do, too. I have a sneaking suspicion that the term "youth-owned culture" may refer only to a very specific type of youth culture - one that is imbued with violence and uninterested in education. If so, then they should say so. And maybe stop to consider why that aspect of youth culture is violent and uninterested in education. Until we work to address the underlying issues affecting teens attitudes towards and achievement in school, education reform will go no where. All the geekifying in the world won't put food in a hungry kid's mouth, or give them a quiet room with a desk to work in, or keep them from working two jobs to help pay the bills. It won't increase teacher salaries to attract the best and the brightest to the field, it won't lower class sizes, it won't make a full class-set of textbooks and equipment appear. There are bigger issues here.

On Chain-link and Children

For many reasons (personal. political, spiritual) I'm am a staunch opponent of the death penalty. In fact, I believe in serious, radical prison reform. It is an issue near and dear to my heart. It is an issue made nearer and dearer by Susan Kuklin's No Choirboy.

I'm not about to pontificate on the death penalty here. I could spend pages explaining how it's more expensive than life without parole; how it does nothing to deter criminal behavior; how an admittedly biased judicial system should not hold peoples' lives in its syringes and cyanide crystals; how, since 1973, 135 people have been found innocent on death row; how the death penalty is administered arbitrarily. But I won't get into that here. Here, I want to talk about teens.

No Choirboy details the circumstances and experiences of six teens on, or formerly on, death row. Their crimes, their trials, and their various prison experiences are beautifully told in their own words. These teens' search for redemption within the cold walls of our brutal prison system is a testament to the will of the human spirit, and the strength of children everywhere.

It's also a pretty damning indictment of a society that, until 2005, deemed it completely moral and just to execute children.

Let's talk about what it means to be an adolescent, because, as close as the numbers may be, teens are not adults. End of story. Research on the adolescent brain has shown us that "areas involved in planning and decision-making, including the prefrontal cortex -- the cognitive or reasoning area of the brain important for controlling impulses and emotions -- appear not to have yet reached adult dimension during the early twenties" (italics mine). A study by the National Institute of Mental Health states, "When contemplating risky decisions, they show less activity in regions of the brain that regulate processes involved in decision-making, compared with adults. The areas are among the last to develop and are involved in control of “thinking” functions, including decision-making, and in processing reward-related input and behavior (the orbitofrontal/ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex)" (italics mine).

Not to beat a dead horse, or a dead anything as the case may be, but adolescents are not adults. They don't act like them, think like them, process input like them, feel like them, communicate like them . . . why on earth should they be punished like them? The preferred alternative to the death penalty, now that it is unconstitutional to execute children, is life without parole. But of all the members of society that our prison system should be seeking to rehabilitate and reform, shouldn't it be the youngest and most immature?

When we take into account the fact that the courts are far more likely to try nonwhite youth as adults and more likely to imprison nonwhite youth, it becomes clear that there is something funny about the way society views children of color. There is a tendency to "adultify" children of color. To assign motive and reasoning to their behavior and not to that of white children. This topic is given a wonderful treatment in Ann Ferguson's book Bad Boys: Public Schools and the Making of Black Masculinity. It's also something that I see and hear every day of my working life.

"They're no children"
"They're kids, but they're not kids."
"They're young, but not innocent."
"Children don't act like that."
"No child would say that."
"They're little (fill in the word of your choice: animals, monsters, thugs, pimps, savages, conmen, criminals)."

That last one may not be a statement of "adultification" (depending on which word you chose), but it's in the same line. Kids will be kids, except when they're obviously expressing deep-seated, adult, calculating, criminal intent.

Yes, a kid may have had a rough start in life, may be poor, may live in a tough neighborhood, may not have enough to eat, may have to work, may have been abused, may be very angry about all of that . . . it doesn't make him not a kid.

So we've gone from the death penalty, to adolescent neuroscience, to teen incarceration, to racism in our justice system, to racism and the "adultification" of children of color . . . these issues all intersect and overlap in so many ways, painting a picture of a system (systems, really - educational, judicial, correctional . . .) that is flawed and biased and incredibly powerful. As public servants I think it's important to remember the context in which we work, and to recognize our own biases and prejudices.

Power Dynamics

In the future, when I think about my time at Pratt as a Library Science student, I may very well consider July 27, 2009 - the eighth meeting of Summer II's Young Adult Lit class - the worst day ever. Why, you ask? Because I wasn't there. And Barry Lyga, author of Boy Toy, was. Missing truly awesome stuff could be a major theme of my life. It's something I'm trying to work on. Promise.

I want to write about Boy Toy. There is so much I want to say, but I'll keep this brief. Of all of the things that struck me about this book (as reader, a teacher of seventh graders, an adult who loves adolescents . . . ), what stuck with me, haunting me and forcing me to examine my own practices, was the way Lyga paints such a clear picture of adult-child relationships. In Boy Toy, Josh is sexually abused by his seventh grade Social Studies teacher. They end up having an extended "affair," which culminates in her going to prison, her husband beating Josh senseless, and Josh sexually molesting a friend. There is a lot to explore here, as we listen to now-eighteen-year-old Josh tell his story and figure himself and his relationships out.

But I want to focus on the relationship between Eve, the teacher, and Josh, the twelve-year-old. Specifically, in how Lyga, with compassion and amazing skill crafts Eve's sly manipulation of Josh. He makes so explicit the complex power dynamics at play between adults and children, and especially between authority figures such as teachers, and their charges. Every time Eve asks Josh if this is "what [he] wants," she works to ensure that he sees himself as the guilty party. She preys on this guilt, carefully setting up sexual situations that appear to Josh to be in his control and his fault. Six years later, this situation is still being used by certain adults in Josh's life, to their advantage. When Josh's coach wants to goad him - he brings up Eve. It's so well written, and quite disturbing.

And, because I have a near-pathological need to relate everything back to my life and work . . . as a teacher I think about power dynamics of the classroom and the school bureaucracy in general all of the time. The way we are manipulated by our administrators, and they by their supervisors . . . how we, in turn, manipulate our students and they each other . . . in one long chain of power plays. The need to balance honesty, respect, humor, patience, and authority in order to craft a safe learning environment for all kids. Something as simple as collecting a homework assignment, or handing back a quiz is an opportunity to humiliate or praise, to create a class hierarchy, to validate or invalidate . . . everything we do is fraught with this emotional potential. How we use it is everything.

Body Drama

I want so badly to love Body Drama - the book, not the actual thing itself. It's about high time someone made a book celebrating girls' real bodies and showcasing the range of shapes, sizes, colors, and textures they come in. I love that it's full of photographs and frank talk about all the weird and interesting things normal bodies do. I love that it discusses what isn't normal (BV, STIs) without moralizing or sliding into the ick-gross trap too often, and that it offers great advice for dealing with your period and keeping healthy.

But there are a few things I don't like about the book, and they really stand out to me because on all the other points, it's spot on.

First of all, despite its lip service to celebrating our unique and awesome bodies, the book is chock full of body care and beauty tips designed to help you take your awesome uniqueness and make it look, you know, better . . . more ummmm, normal? What the hell? Don't come out swinging, shouting body love and acceptance from the rooftops, then spend every other page reinforcing the beauty status quo. That ideal image you're self-tanning, plucking, waxing, squishing, pushing up and out, coloring, straightening, and painting to achieve . . . it ain't real! And you should know that, Body Drama!

Then it gets a little fat-phobic on you. Body Drama equates being overweight with being unhealthy again and again, but the two are not interchangeable. There are plenty of thin folks who are terribly unhealthy and plenty of chubsters (like myself) who are not. Poor eating habits and a sedentary lifestyle are unhealthy, but they don't, necessarily = overweight, as healthy eating habits and exercise do not = thin. I know that it's possible to be overweight and healthy. So do plenty of other people (scientists and doctors, even!) Like the good folks at Healthy at Every Size. I know that overweight people can live longer and have better survival rates for cardiac events, I know that fat can help protect against many diseases, I know that thin=/=healthy and overweight =/=unhealthy, I know that dieting can make you sick (really sick). I know that the BMI scale is crap. If I know all of this, why doesn't Body Drama? Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for everyone getting fit and healthy, by all means . . . and I commend Body Drama for a great section on nutrition . . . but fit does not equal trim, it equals fit, it equals the ability to perform certain physical tasks. And a sense of self confidence and self worth that comes from having, specifically, lost weight and from the compliments of others is bound to crumble. Again, Body Drama is paying lip service to love and acceptance, while reminding us that we could look better . . . compliment-worthy, even.

The third way Body Drama disappoints me (deeply, painfully) is in its coverage of sexy, sexy sex. Or lack thereof. Yes, there's a great section on contraception that even includes tubal ligation (woot!) and good info on STIs, but no information about your body and sex. Nothing to prepare a girl for what might happen and the ways her body will react to getting hot and heavy (hello vaginal secretions!). Nothing on masturbation, either. Seems to me that sex is a major source of body drama (amiright, Ms. Cho (2:10)? Seriously, after the sex bit, she discusses body issues, dieting, and eating disorders with such grace and humor.)

Body Drama just told me I'm cool the way I am but: really, I could look a lot better, I'm fat and therefore unhealthy, and I might be a slut. Sheesh! I'm going to go crawl into my closet for a while. My winter coats don't judge me.

YA Programming

We discussed teen programming the other day and my first thoughts were something along the lines of, "What the hell do I know about library programs?" and, "Crap, I'm so uninformed." As the librarians in the group began discussing the components of effective teen programming, and programs they had run in their libraries, I was struck by how familiar it all felt. Hands on projects that extended from the book, bridging the gap between literature and reality, creating/fostering critical thinking and analysis skills, discussing alternate understanding of the text . . . Hey, programming is a lot like . . . teaching?! Then I rolled my eyes at my idiocy and jumped into my group's discussion.

There are obvious differences between creating a library program around a book and teaching that book in a classroom. But there are striking similarities, as well. Especially for us teachers of kids with special needs. Students with cognitive or language impairments, kids with learning disabilities, emotionally disturbed kids, English Language Learners, highly kinesthetic learners . . . they all need teachers to engage their whole selves in a book, and they need high-interest, thought-and-conversation-provoking activities to scaffold their understanding of the text. They need to do meaningful, fun work around that text, and they need to talk about it. A lot.

If only our local libraries were running programs on what the local schools were reading . . . or, you know, the teachers and school library media specialists ever talked. But that's a-whole-nother post.

On liking teenagers

I just had lunch with an old friend and her old friend. We were two teachers and a school social worker and the conversation naturally came around to the one thing we had most obviously in common - kids. We compared stories, laughed at ourselves and our students, and lamented the paucity of resources. Typical teacher talk.

Then we began discussing teaching and working with kids in general. As we moved off of ourselves and into the wider world in which we work, our stories all seemed to have a common theme - one that begged the question: why do so many adults who work with teens seem (or profess) to hate them?

I've seen a goodly number of teen-hating teachers and librarians in the last few years and I'm starting to worry that I'm destined to become one. Is it possible to maintain your compassion, composure, patience, and humor in the face of a decade or two of teen antics and angst? Will I gradually lose the ability to remember what 14, 15, 16 felt like? Or to remember the crap I pulled at those ages? How bloody annoying I was? How much life sucked?

Hope . . .

Do teens need hope? More to the point - do they need it in their literature? After discussing some painfully gut-wrenching novels in class, we came around to this essential question. We brainstormed and were able to come up with only a handful of titles (barring Christopher Pike's oeuvre) where in the main character dies. Many of these were still relatively hopeful - begging the question, do teens need hope? Do they need that glimmer of silver in the thunderhead?

I don't think so. I see kids go from tween to teen every year. I watch them mature and learn to read and take stock of the world around them. They exist in a limbo: not kids and not yet adults, governed by rules they have no say in, highly marketed but not self-sufficient, affected and interested by politics but unable to vote . . . Teens live in a adult world that is largely ignorant of their concerns and crises. I think there is something about the hopeless, the utterly bleak, that speaks to this sense of alienation and disenfranchisement.

Many of them don't need rainbows after the storm, but we keep providing it. Perhaps it has something to do with our adult guilt - our need to promise that everything will eventually be kind of okay. The protagonist will survive (and so will you!). The world cares about her (and also about you!). Bad things happen to good people but not really because in the end there is a glimmer of hope to let you know that g-d or whomever is still on their (your!) side.

Do I think teens need hope? Not any more than adults do. I think we're just suffering from Pretty Woman syndrome - on their behalf.