I've been thinking about the power of the youth since summer 2020. Okay, I've actually thought about it since I was a young person, but last summer I really felt like writing about it. I have been slowly building a list of texts that I want to reread to include in my analysis, but I feel like it does not need all that? It can be boiled down roughly to one sentence: young people are powerful and we need to listen. This is going to be a meta-cognitive practice: I want to post all of the stubby ideas that have been floating in my mind since last year and see if I can craft a cohesive argument that is worthy of development. Or, could it really be boiled down to that previously stated sentence?
I'm old and washed.
Every year when I start to get to know my students and they get to know me, I let them know that I attended Chico State (once the #1 party school according to Playboy). Students wait until they have established a level of comfort with me before asking me, "Ms. Vaughan, did you go to any parties while you were at Chico?" They have a shit-eating grin on their faces like they are the only person who knows Chico's reputation. This question is also so funny because it makes me realize that I have no access to what their imaginations have constructed to make them ask a question so vague. The obvious answer is "Yes." But I don't like to entertain all of the follow-up questions, so I have historically said the same replies: "Any school is a party school if you want it to be" or "No, but I used to stand outside the window and look in, thinking, 'I wish I could be more fun.'" While I say the latter, I mime desperation, palms pressed on an imaginary window, looking in. It used to get a good laugh. Two years ago, a student said, "Oh my gosh, that's so sad. ____, why did you ask that?" She didn't imagine me making a joke to suggest the ridiculousness of the question. She thought I was serious. That's when I knew I was old and washed.
Ideas I want to include from here:
-The anecdote into the profession of teaching high school and what has been learned + excitement of what is left to learn.
-Inertia of society/learning that older generations maintain and young people naturally push against it/ "ok, boomer"
-The sensitivity of young people and the difference in art between the 1990s (shock and awe) and the 2000s (healing from that shock).
-The need for authenticity and the ability to identify it in others
-Language and how it used to lateralize and move down--is now moving back up into the generations as a litmus test
-Smart being redefined over and over again--it is a good thing!!!
-They are living our dreams and we're mad about it, but isn't that the point?
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