Analyze: Let Teenagers Try Adulthood

                After reading Let Teenagers Try Adulthood by Leon Botstein I started to really think about the way that things are in High Schools today compared to a few years ago. I do agree with a lot of what Leon says in this article. Too much emphasis is put on students to fit into a certain group. I also agree with how much emphasis is put on cliques in high school. Why does it matter if you were popular in high school? A lot of the time people that are “outsiders” become more successful than the most popular kids. High school is actually a very destructive place and that can lead to a lot of violence.

 I agree with what the author said about violence in schools. High school can be a very harmful experience for certain kids who are exiled by their peers. In the passage Botstein refers to the Columbine shooting and just recently there was a school shooting at Sandy Hook. These kids were obviously not a happy highschoolers. Kids like these are often outcasts and not well liked by their peers. Some of this anger could be the result of kids maturing sooner than when high school was created. Kids are becoming sexually active sooner than in years before and that causes more conflict within schools. In the past kids were maturing later in life, specifically out of high school. All of those emotions happening at once along with the stress and pressure of fitting in create a really destructive learning environment.

High School has become more about social issues instead of what it is intended for which is learning. That is what the author is saying throughout the essay. If we went back to focusing on what is important then students would be a lot more prepared and successful in life after school. He makes a point of saying that a lot of the time kids that weren’t very high on the social ladder tend to be successful in life after school. Then again High School does not prepare kids for real life and it should be abolished according to Botstein. All of this focus on social issues and lack of progress in education leads to unprepared students and isn’t the point of high school to prepare kids for real life? If it isn’t doing what it is supposed to why keep doing the things that aren’t working? These are some of the questions Botstein raises in his article.

One thing that I don’t agree with about this article is that the author says that under trained teachers is the main reason as to why students aren’t successful and why high school should be abolished. Everyone has had a teacher that isn’t the best at what they are doing but I don’t believe that that alone is the problem of high schools today. I think that it may have a part in it but I do not think that it is the main reason as to why high school isn’t successful anymore. I mean what can a teacher do to change the way that high school works? They just follow the rules of high schools; I think that the main problem is high schools themselves.

So, what can we do to change high schools to make them more up to date and successful? In the article he proposes that students graduate at 16 instead of 18 so they can get on with their lives. I agree with this to an extent. I think that some students are ready to take on the world at 16 but some need those two extra years to prepare themselves. I would change it to 16 like Botstein recommended but I would put some restrictions on who would have that option. I would make sure that high schools were not sending kids out in to the world too early and make sure that they had the knowledge to become successful. Changing the age to which kids graduate would eliminate some of that sexual tensions and frustrations. I think that administrators need to get more involved in the social aspect of high school because it is such a big part of what high school is today.

To conclude, I agree with a lot of the things that Botstein proposed in his essay with a few exceptions. High schools these days are defiantly not what they should be and there needs to be a change. The American High School has become a place of violence, discrimination and social inequality. When the focus of high school is not to become popular but to be successful outside of school.