IN “UK TEENS WORST BEHAVED IN EUROPE,” the Mail reports on its front page of a study that means “youngsters follow the example set by their friends rather than guidance from their parents.” (Buy the T-shirt here)
This, the Mail says, is the “damning verdict”.
The fallout from Britain’s youth culture is not just great music, innovative fashion and 35-a-side football matches on a Faliraki beach but an increased likelihood among teens to “binge drink, take drugs and have sex at a young age”.
The Mail stops just short of saying the youth of today play their music too loud, mangle the national idiom and have no respect for the older generation. And that they are fat. But such things defy even the Mail’s to-hell-in-a-handcart reporting.
The statistics produced by the Institute for Public Policy Research show that 44 per cent of British youngsters were “involved” in a physical fight last year – compared to 28 per cent in Germany, 36 per cent in France and 38 per cent in Italy.
It’s a shocking statistic, and one that begs the questions what “involved” means and who the teenagers are fighting?
And coincidence indeed that this news should come before the Government announces an intention to spend almost £1.4billion on out-of-hours home work, art and drama clubs at secondary schools.
This is the “extended schools” initiative. Adults will remember it under its old umbrella term: detention. It will enable latchkey kids to remain at school while their parents and guardians are in work.
School Secretary Ed Balls wants schools to remain open from 8am to 6pm. The Mail says Mr Balls is “understood to want a good youth centre in every neighbourhood”. (Paid for by some £150m taken from defunct bank accounts.)
These venues that will, in turn, create good youth. The good will hang out with other youths who will learn from them. Bad youths will be eradicated. A good youth club will be more than a shabby room with a pool table where 15-year-olds can smoke, score weed and pull.
These youth clubs will be disciplined operations run by adults. The adult population will then regain the confidence to engage with the uniformly good youth – the IPPR report says adult Britons are less likely than Europeans to confront teenagers about anti-social behaviour.
And that’s good. But, as ever, the fear is far worse than the reality. The kids are alright. They just need to be treated like individuals. They need to be raised in a society they are listened and made to feel that what they do is worthwhile and not just about being compliant and passing an exam…
Posted: 26th, July 2007 | In: Tabloids Comments (2) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
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August 7th, 2007 at 5:35 pm
Hello,
I think this is the worst load of rubbish that I have ever heard.
I’m fourteen years old, and personally think the main reason that people my age act like they do is because England is probably one of the most judging countries in Europe. It’s things like this article that push teenagers like me to acting out in a bad way.
I have never tried drugs, never smoked, never drunk in excess or behind my parents back, want to wait to have sex after marriage, and wish to do well in my GCSE’s.
But of course England doesn’t concentrate on people like me, who, might I add, I am surrounded by day in and day out. Of course there’s teenagers who are bad, but hello? Let’s find the statistics on adults who got into a physical fight last year shall we? I bet they didn’t include that.
And besides, for all they know, the teenagers could’ve been fighting robbers, thieves, bullies, even on the extremes, drunken adults who got too lairy to others, even rapists or something. But of course this country only hears what they want to hear.
Some of my friends may have screwed up, (me definitely as well) but does that make us bad people? No. Don’t think so.
So next time you adults want to judge teenagers, and give up on us and assume we’re all the same, bad, stupid people who only get a kick out of life when drugs are involved. Or if you’re people like Jewellers who watch ONLY the teenagers out of all the people in the shop, take a look at the news. On TV, the Internet, radios or phones, it doesn’t take much.
And tell me just exactly how many murderers, terrorists, fascists, dictators and criminals that are teenagers. Sure, there are some, but note: There are a lot of adults, aren’t there?
Which just tells you something in itself. Adults-have-the-capacity-to-be-as-bad-as-us-sometimes.
*sarcastic clap*
and it took a fourteen year old to point that out to you.
I’m not normally this stressed, but I’m sick and tired of being judged just because I’ve got the word -teen at the end of my age.
Take a look at this, and tell me that I’m wrong.
Free speech.
Amy x
July 27th, 2007 at 8:37 am
You are wrong to equate extended schools with detention - extended schools isnt just about extending school hours, its also about developing innovative approaches to supporting young people and families including family learning, adult education, holiday activities, links with support agencies including those from the voluntary and community sectors, developing lunchtime and before school acitvities and working with schoos to open them up to their communities to ensure that the resources available within schools are used to the best advantage of their local communities. It is also about link with Supplementary scholols to ensure that childen from BME backgrounds are supported to achieve to thier full potential and do not have to relinquish their own cultures to get there.
As you say, “The kids are alright.They just need to be treated like individuals. They need to be raised in a society they are listened and made to feel that what they do is worthwhile and not just about being compliant and passing an exam”
All this is based on local consultation with parents and carers and with young people themselves.
there is a massive push to engage and listen young people in the development of services both within scholols with the introduction of practical citizenship and also in the new youth plans
I agree that some of the plans are abit micky mouse, but dont make the mistake of taking one specific aspect of new government youth and education policy and criticising it as if it represents the whole picture or you run the risk of throwing the young person out with the bathwater