When a student finally graduates out of this culture, he has undoubtedly gained a smattering of practical knowledge. But after four years in a shallow, conformist world, he is no closer to being an adult, really, than when he entered high school in the first place. Or if he has matured, than it has been in spite of his "socialization," not because of it.
But it's so important for kids to spend time with their peers, the objectors will bleat. Well, yes, time with one's peers is great--but must it be every day, from eight till five and beyond? Surely this is arrant nonsense. Adolescents are messed-up, confused, insecure human beings, each buckling under an individual, angst-ridden burden. Why on earth would it be good for them to spend all of their time with other angst-ridden, insecure, unhappy types?
In a saner world, they would be forced to live with, and as, adults for large chunks of time--making it more likely that they would actually become adults. Such a world would encourage home-schooling, for instance, by easing the economic burden for parents who choose to stay home and teach. It would offer a more flexible, decentralized system of education, balancing classroom time with, say, vocational training and programs allowing kids to work under and alongside adults in local workplaces. It would be a world where adolescents were integrated into society, not ghettoized in the local high school.
In the absence of such a world, everyone will continue to go through the high school zoo, and most people will manage to cope. I, for one, rather enjoyed the experience. But I knew plenty of people who didn't, people who couldn't accommodate themselves to the warped hierarchies of an adolescent culture. I don't doubt that in their darker moments, these unhappy high schoolers fantasized that they, like Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman, might "take a flame thrower to this place."
But they never did it, of course. It was unthinkable.
Now all that has changed. Not only is it thinkable, it's easily done. Just ask Charles Andrew Williams.
Ross G. Douthat '02 is a history and literature concentrator in Quincy House. His column appears on alternate Mondays.