The New Normal

[C_nate]

There are a lot of things that have changed over the course of my lifetime. When I was a kid, I grew up in your typical, average, middle class, suburban neighborhood. And now that my kids are growing up in your typical, average, middle class suburban neighborhood I was comparing their normal to my normal back then.

When I was a kid in school for example, no one had cell phones. Now they are all over the place. My kids are still too young for them (yet) but there are plenty of children in the older grades that have them already.

When I was a kid in school, it was bag lunches everyday. Usually a ham sandwich and a bag of chips or something. We didn't have a thing where your parents write a check to the school and the kids get hot lunches all year because our grade school didn't have a kitchen or cafeteria or whatever. My kids get a nice warm meal that varies day to day.

Our playground at school was literally made out of old truck tires and looked almost exactly like this:

My kids playground looks more like this:

But, some things seem to be the same. My kids were telling me about their fire drill they had the other day and of course I fondly remembered thinking back to how I used to love fire drills at school because we used to get out of class for a few minuets at least.

But then my son told me about another drill they did. One I never had to do as a child in grade school. A "lockdown" drill.

And it made me pretty sad to think things are so fucked up now, that school shootings are just another normal part of life like the occasional fire. And it struck me that my kids would probably have something in common with my parents when they went to school and had their own special drill during that time


What is it going to take for this bullshit to change? More guns is certainly not the answer, but that's what we keep getting anyway.

 

[MattAY]

Yes, I get that feeling sometimes and I dont even have kids yet!!

I had a phone when I was 13 I think, a Nokia 3210 - BAM!

And whilst I did text on it quite a lot - I didn't invest as much time into it as kids do now. It's massively distracting from schoolwork I would image, but you have to have one in case an emergency comes up.

I still have a packed lunch for work now - so I feel nothing lost there haha! In primary school I had no cafeteria, it was packed lunches or go hungry. I would think a primary school with a cafeteria is "fancy" - but that's England for ya! We also had a health revamp in schools about 5-10 years ago because Jamie Oliver cried when kids got served a greasy sausage - fucking mong.

I always think being a kid was way better in my time than now. When I was young I'd venture into the woods with my friends and make a den and explore with stick swords!
I'm hoping kids still do that haha?!

 

[De-Ting]

I'm 23 years old, and aside from cellphones, everything you've talked about relates to my childhood.

Lockdown drills have been in place at least as long as I'd been in school. We would hide under our desks, try to be quiet (and fail miserably), the teacher would turn the lights off and lock the door. My guess is it's been a common practice since Columbine.

What I'm more concerned about is how hard it is to keep innocence alive in kids. Public schools certainly have no regard for it, and no matter where you go, kids are talking trash. I could go on for hours about this stuff, but it's not going to solve anything.

 

[UghRochester]

I broke my foot on the playground and it's similar to C_nate's second image. Of course, it was my fault for jumping off the highest part of the playground. Kinda disappointing, I was in first grade and couldn't go to the zoo.

We didn't have lockdown drills, just the usual fire and dangerous weather drills (tornadoes, hurricanes etc.) Our school was pretty much loose. It wasn't until after what happened on 9/11 when they actually got a security guard and metal detectors.

I didn't have a cell phone until I was 12-ish. I knew what time I needed to be home or I would get my ass kicked by mom. I feel they distract the teenagers nowadays. Not only at school, but where I work. I would love to slap them when they're on their cell phone while a customer is waiting for their food. This actually leads me to my next opinion.

I feel most of the kids today are disrespectful little dirtbags and it's saddening to see. Every where in my area, they're listening or trying to be rappers. F*cking before they hit puberty or some sh*t like that. Always talking about drugs and b*tches. Today, I witnessed someone spelling "breakfast" as "brakefest." Whatever happened to people being a gentlemen, opening the doors for the elders and ladies?

 

[Sourdeez]

My senior year of higschool my town took a bunch of grants from the federal government to build a new school. This is in small town southern Illinois.

They built a giant square concrete building with completely sealed windows and secured entry hallways(the kind you have to be buzzed in through two sets of doors). It has one single open yard in the middle of the giant square building. The parking lot has high fencing put up around it with flood lights on at all times during the night. The also school spent a lot of money on a advanced visual and audio recording system. They are even talking about next year putting rfid chips inside student ID's in order to track them within the school. (the only thing they haven't implemented is the walk through metal detectors. They just use the wands)

The school changed from an open campus to a closed campus. We started having more bomb drills and shooter lockdown drills. We had more police bringing in drug sniffing dogs which would be used at least twice a month. And when this happens the school has to go into lockdown.

The school implemented zero tolerance policies to absolve them of all responsibility and all these changes were made because of conditions in those federal grants. Harsh network control policies were implemented on the computer networks and when the students revolted and circumvented the administration freaked out thinking their federal funding would be pulled. (I was an intern for our I.T. department. I found out all kinds of things)


I know we have to protect the kids but putting them in a learning environment that is literally a prison, One in which everyone is suspect, is not the way.

It was insufferable and I spent most of my senior year of high school calling off sick because of the emotional stress it caused me to be in such a locked down place while being constantly tracked and traced.



When you treat students like daytime prisoners don't be surprised when they are affected by the environment they are supposed to be learning in.



(still passed my senior year with A's and B's. They created a new rule after me because they were upset that I still graduated with good grades and didn't come to class a whole semester. Now the rules is if you miss 20 days excused absences you get expelled for the semester)

Because you see to them it isn't about education anymore. It is about getting those federal grant dollars. It is about having as many students as they can serving their time. No room for intelligent people who have the ability to still excel without being put in daytime prison.


So I did my time and yes I really do feel that way. Both my parents worked in prisons so by the time I was a teenager I was familiar with the design of prisons and their operation.

 

[UrbanMasque]

Keep voting republican (no exception) - things wont change.

 

[Eyebrowsbv31]

THINGS did change, urbs, it did, it did, see:

SURGE IS BACK.

But only in the midwest/east coast.

 

[Master_Craig]

Good read, C_nate. Completely relate to this thread.

I'm twenty seven years old and I didn't have my first mobile until I was sixteen years old. I had one of those really old Motorola phones you could win from Coca Cola.

I didn't upgrade until I was eighteen, when I could afford to pay for my own things.

I barely used my phone. It usually stayed in my school bag. We honestly didn't really text much in class. When I was young, the "norm" were those old school disc mans, the portable CD player. Nowadays, iPods, iPhones, iTouch, other smart phones etc.

We had fire drills in school, but we also had cyclone drills too. Back in the 70's there was a vicious cyclone, Cyclone Tracy, which pretty much tore my town apart, so ever since then this town has become very cyclone conscious and very protective against cyclones, but we still did drills for them every now and then. We haven't had such a cyclone since, but touch wood it won't happen again.

I have a couple of friends who are teachers, and they tell me that apparently, teenagers are getting worse by the year. Recently the news paper reported that a lot of teenagers are struggling with basic reading and writing skills and a lot of them have very poor skill in mathematics. Apparently kids actually write in their books like net/text speak, e.g. "wen i went to the store, i saw u ther", in their frickin' work books.

A lot of kids seem so concerned about being "cool" that they don't give two shits about their education, let alone themselves, which is really sad.Of course, not all kids are like this. There are also many good kids who do the right thing, play sports, do their home work, and even work casual and part time jobs. These kids are great.

Not gonna lie but... back in school there used to be this guy who was a real wanker. He was a bully, a real "cool" kid who did bugger all in school. I saw him today - he's a garbage truck driver.

C_nate - sorry to hear what's become the "norm" over there in regards to guns. That sucks, no good at all.

 

[UghRochester]

Not gonna lie but... back in school there used to be this guy who was a real wanker. He was a bully, a real "cool" kid who did bugger all in school. I saw him today - he's a garbage truck driver(

To be honest, that pays better than working at McDonald's over here.

 

[Master_Craig]

Not gonna lie but... back in school there used to be this guy who was a real wanker. He was a bully, a real "cool" kid who did bugger all in school. I saw him today - he's a garbage truck driver(

To be honest, that pays better than working at McDonald's over here.

A shame to hear that, sorry man. :/

 

[Sourdeez]

Garbage workers where I am from get paid well and have full benefits including a pension.
They don't even pick up garbage anymore. They have a robotic arm attached to the truck that picks up the cans.

No shame in a good job.

 

[Bretimus_v2]

Normally I joke...but as scary as a shooting is, lockdown drills,and all that, I think the more upsetting things are the ones that leave your child alive but broken. In my time as a youth minister and doing scouting I've come across kids that have suffered emotional and sexual abuse. I've seen that the worst things that happen to kids rarely show up on the news. They happen in their houses, or the houses of extended family and friends and then they eat slowly at the individual. What's worse is that it is happening just as much today as it did in the past and that so many of the survivors take decades before they find the courage to speak up.

Teach your kids about stranger danger. Teach them about Internet safety. Raise them to where they can trust you enough to share embarrassing and scary things and not worry about you getting mad.

 

[C_nate]

What I'm more concerned about is how hard it is to keep innocence alive in kids. Public schools certainly have no regard for it, and no matter where you go, kids are talking trash. I could go on for hours about this stuff, but it's not going to solve anything.

I think it's an interesting point, but it something that is tough to balance. The world is a harsh place and as much as it is an instinct to protect children from that, we also have to prepare them for it. You see parents doing a poor job of that on both sides, but I think the balance has shifted too far in one direction as you are seeing more and more young 20 somethings unprepared for dealing with real life. I'm only 36, but this infantilization of young people seems to be getting out of hand (south park has been devoting their recent episodes to this with things like the whole "safe space" thing)

I feel most of the kids today are disrespectful little dirtbags and it's saddening to see. Every where in my area, they're listening or trying to be rappers. F*cking before they hit puberty or some sh*t like that. Always talking about drugs and b*tches. Today, I witnessed someone spelling "breakfast" as "brakefest." Whatever happened to people being a gentlemen, opening the doors for the elders and ladies?

I think that's a myth. Well, not a total myth, but mostly. Some kids have been disrespectful assholes long before we were born. Young men are trying to assert themselves and act tough, that's nothing new either. Young bucks locking horns and all that. Does that make it right? Not really, but most of them will grow out of it is the point I guess.

I know we have to protect the kids but putting them in a learning environment that is literally a prison, One in which everyone is suspect, is not the way.

It was insufferable and I spent most of my senior year of high school calling off sick because of the emotional stress it caused me to be in such a locked down place while being constantly tracked and traced.

When you treat students like daytime prisoners don't be surprised when they are affected by the environment they are supposed to be learning in.

This is closer to what I was trying to get at in my original post. It's how it seems our society is heading the wrong way when it comes to dealing with stuff like this. It's making the kids (and us) prisoners because they won't (and probably can't at this point) do anything about this volatile mix of mental health and proliferation of easy to obtain guns and instead we have to sit and wait for the next inevitable mass shooting that may be in a school or a mall or a movie theater or who knows.

If I'm in a pessimistic mood, I really do think we are headed to some dystopian future where my children's children will head off to school and are taught under armed guard by rifle wielding agents in the halls and teachers with sidearms on their hips. It's madness to me that these mass shootings keep happening and the only answer is obviously more guns of course.

Normally I joke...but as scary as a shooting is, lockdown drills,and all that, I think the more upsetting things are the ones that leave your child alive but broken. In my time as a youth minister and doing scouting I've come across kids that have suffered emotional and sexual abuse. I've seen that the worst things that happen to kids rarely show up on the news. They happen in their houses, or the houses of extended family and friends and then they eat slowly at the individual. What's worse is that it is happening just as much today as it did in the past and that so many of the survivors take decades before they find the courage to speak up.

Teach your kids about stranger danger. Teach them about Internet safety. Raise them to where they can trust you enough to share embarrassing and scary things and not worry about you getting mad.

Good point also. For all the attention the shootings get, there is a ton of abuse that goes on that never gets reported. It's something that is very depressing especially when it is done by family members whom the children trust and rely on the most.