Cliques, bullying, harassing the different, indifference to the needs of others — these are sophomoric behaviors which have no place or presence in civil discourse.
Boorish behavior, rebellion, an insistence on questions and challenging everything — these are normal among adolescents, to the degree that they have not been properly raised at home. To the degree that they face challenges to receiving a mature upbringing from parents and family. That does not mean, however, that the school or the local community as a whole must shoulder the responsibility.
Unfortunately, a growing number of teachers and staff have refused to take on the challenge of bringing up the students who congregate on their campuses from day to day. For many of them, rebellion has become the only viable response to a hostile and defiant world.
Currently, however the margins of society have become mainstream in the art world, in which offense, scandal, and opprobrium now feature next to modern and classical works of art. This startling trend is hurting our nation's sense of concert and community. Outrage has no meaning if there is nothing to rage against, and a society which has not order, no borders, and no shoulders on which the next generation can stand on, will diminish into imbecility or insanity. The standard of excellence, of liberty, of purpose cannot be thrust away so flippantly.
As Grown-Ups continue to refuse to define the lines of good and bad, acceptable and unacceptable what choice do Young Ones have but to make the rule up as the go? The result of this untimely resignation of authority includes granting more power, right, and discretion to the younger generation over their education, at the expense of harassed and uninvolved parents and teachers who are doing all that they can to make due.
Grown-Ups cannot be the model they are destined to be for the younger class of persons in our country if we do not command the respect which we in turn hope that they will appropriate for themselves. Independence,:yes indeed, for students who are seeking their voice and their place in an expanding world. Individualism: not all, for no man is an island, no one takes a step without infringing or recognizing the role and right and respect of the others in their wake and awareness.