GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING 68 Adolescence has a terrible reputation, and teenagers know it. 'When I turned 13,'write s Vita Wallace, "the thing that I worried about most was that I I would suddenly be considered a confused and frivolous teenager.' 'There is a popular belief,'echoes Anna-Llsa Cox, "that teenagers are anfl-soclal creah tures for whom'responsibility'ls a dirty word.'Worse, teenagers are not only supposed to behave mlserably, they are supposed to feel miserable as well. "It's a dilllcult time," adults traditionally sigh. Maybe lt is. Maybe there are thlngs about lt that will be dilllcult no matter what anyone does. But what comes through so clearly ln the teenagers'wrltlng ln this lssue of GWS is that adolescence doesn't have to be as bad as we assume. The teenagers who wrote for this lssue were asked to answer the question, "What do you want from adults?,' and ifs hard to read their responses without feeling that they deserye to get what they're asking for. "Respect,' they say, over and over again. 'Civility.'And, perhaps most important, adults who will help them find ways to do the work, the activities, that they are dlscovering they want to do. The lnteresting thing about these partlcular teenagers, all of whom have spent some time homeschooling and many of whom have never been to school at all, ls that the storles they tell here are more often than not about getting what they want from adults. They may know that they can't count on this from everyone, and they may have had frustrating experiences as well (some of which they do descrlbe here), but they are also able to give example after example of adults talcing them seriously and helptng them to do what they want to do. Carey Newman's parents helped her get permission to have a show of her wildlife sketches at a nearby gallery. Emma Roberts finds that the adults in her communit5r theatre group treat her like a serious professional. Chelsea Chapman has an adult friend who was willing to help herwrite a play. And so on. Somehow these young people are finding ways to overcome adolescence's negailve reputation and to get what they need from the adult world. What's striking about the examples the writers give in these pages, when set against the conventional view of teenagers, is that instead of wanting a separate youth culture, these young people want to be let in to the world of adults. They want to work with adults, to hear what older people have to say as long as they're also allowed to form their own opinions and make their own x
Anna-Lisa Cox (rlg!t) ls among the tcenagers who wrlte for this issue's Focus, 'What Teenagers Want From Adults," pages lg-22.
INSIDE THIS ISSUE: NEWS &REPORTS p.2-3
THE REI,ATIONSHIP BETWEEN LEARNINGAND TEACHING p. 3-a CHALLENGES& CONCERNS p. 5-6
Irarning Not to Push, The Tlouble r{/ith Socialization, How To Make Latin Relevant HOWADULTS LEARN p. 7 FINDING & MAKING COMMUNITY p.8-e WATCHING CHILDREN LEARN p.9-13, p.28-29 Reading, Music, Play, Research
Papers, Making Connections, Recovering Enthusiasm
FOCUS: WFIAT TEENAGERS WANT FROM ADULTS p. re-22 TEENS DOING REALWORK p. 2223
CHILDREN IN THE WORKPI..A.CE p.23-24 Family Store, John Holt on Exploltation
HOW FAMILIES MAKE DECISIONS: TWO DISCUSSIONS p.24-26 RESOURCES & RECOMMEN.
DATIONS p.27-2a
mistakes. Does the fact that these teenagers aren't in school explain why they would rather be part of the world at large than part of some separate teenage world? Some might say it does, because school is where the youth culture flourishes. But I think we have to look further and ask why it is that teenagers in convenUonal high schools seem more likely to be drawn to a separate youth culture and alienated from the adult world. I submit that it's because that separate culture ls too often the only one available to teenagers in school. We deny them meanlngful access to the adult world and then wonder why they seem so bitter and resentful toward it. What teenagers need - if I can presume to speak for them br a moment - is adults who can say, 'This is adulthood, and lt's pretty good, so come on along.' Many of the teenagers who wrote for this issue seem to have such adults in thetr lives, and we ought to think about how to make that possible for other teenagers as well. The teenagers ln this issue, without consciously intending to, manage to present a vivid picture of what homeschooled teenagers are doing, and of what adolescence can be for teenagers who are able to explore the wider world and flnd out how theywant to fit lnto it - teenagers, in other words, who are allowed to get right to some of the important tasks of growing up without having to worry about grades, school assignments, popularity, and so on. These accounts should lnspire younger readers who may see possibilities for themselves in them, and older readers who will, after they've finished with this issue of GWS, have no excuse for not giving teenagers the respect, and the kind of help, that they so clearly say they want. Susannah Sheffer
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