Adora Svitak

Dear Parents: Leave Us Alone

2012-07-23T09:14:28-04:00

Who doesn't love attention? We clamor for it as kids, throwing temper tantrums incessantly. We fight with our siblings. We conduct daring feats and do stupid things. Yet somewhere along the road this morphs into closing our doors, demanding our personal space and yelling, "Just leave me alone!"

I'll admit, I used to have little empathy for this mindset when I saw it evidenced by my older sister, Adrianna; to me, she was just distancing herself from the rest of the family for no reason. Now, however, I feel like I can relate a bit. These past couple of weeks have been highly unusual ones in my household. Adrianna's actually gone at music camp in Michigan, so I am for all intents and purposes an only child. You might think that I'd relish all the undivided attention from my parents now, but instead, I feel a certain oppression. This might sound ungrateful, so let me just say right now that I love my parents and value the time I spend with them. But I also feel that it may be a wider problem -- one of desire for independence clashing with protectiveness and a misplaced definition of love as dependence -- that causes and explains the "leave me alone" mindset many teens can relate to.

At 14, I feel the pressures of impending adulthood and a sense of responsibility that I feel should be matched by my parents' trust; I'm growing older and I'll be off to college in two years, since I skipped grades. Yet at the same time, it's plausible to posit that my mom feels the time she has left with me ticking away and wants to capitalize on it. The sense of impending loss is undoubtedly ominous -- to the both of us (I'll have to do my own laundry?! Just kidding). However, it's also undeniably a part of growing up. I need to be allowed to make my own decisions and mistakes, take leaps -- and fall -- without receiving too much help, because it's what I'll be doing for the rest of my life.

In many ways this is what young people did for many years. You might have heard stories from your parents or grandparents about their thrilling adventures in their youth. When he was my age, my dad was taking trains around the East Coast or breaking his teeth on ill-advised bike rides. My mom was running away from home. In the olden days, 14-year-olds took on heavy responsibilities as well as risks (seriously, just read Little House on the Prairie).

Yet in today's world, it's easy for parents to hover over the shoulder in more ways than one; nowadays, parents monitor children's activities on social media (like in the infamous example of Tommy Jordan, the father who shot his daughter's laptop after seeing her negative post on Facebook); stay in constant communication through Skype or texting; and even extend their influence beyond the ages children typically gain some modicum of independence. Professors in college tell anecdotes of parents calling them up to complain about a son or daughter's subpar grade. I feel that this infantilizes young adults, and that this seeming "protection" can only have negative ramifications later on. It reminds me of the ethos of the Lana Del Rey song "Without You," particularly one line: "I can be a china doll / If you want to see me fall." We may be coddled, dressed up, given every advantage -- in short, prepped for perfection -- but there are cracks in the porcelain. Will we break when we fall?

(Of course, I want to add a quick disclaimer here that backing off from the parental hover doesn't mean being negligent. If teens are facing serious issues -- i.e., around mental health or drug addictions -- then they need attention, no matter how much they ask to be left alone.)

Of course, my mom isn't a legitimate example of a helicopter parent. She's never shot a computer, incessantly chatted with me on Skype or yelled at a teacher about a grade. Okay, like many parents, she can get borderline creepy when she has a camera (there was one stalker-ish photo through window blinds once)... but perhaps the most clear exemplification of my mom's feeling comes in the form of things she's said -- often in a joking way, but probably with a kernel of truth -- along the lines of, "I miss the old Adora" or "What happened to the little Adora?"

Sure, I miss "the old Adora" sometimes too (who doesn't want to be able to innocently run around in the mud as much as they used to?) but I feel that these quotes belie a certain clinging to a persistent memory that no longer exists in reality. Imagine if I said things like, "I miss my old mother." I wonder how my mom would feel.

So how do people grow up in ways that minimize conflicting feelings of independence desired versus dependence missed? Perhaps as the children start to fly from the quintessential "nest," parents can find some new "children" of sorts to lavish attention on. Excellent examples come from senior citizens who invest themselves heavily in volunteering and charitable causes.

I think it's important to define the difference between attention and love, after all. As children, we have a tenuous idea of love; we often try to quantify it with how much we feel seen and heard. Now, I want the independence that comes with being sure of my parents' love, and not needing to feel them watch me.

Besides, I know I'm not such a little kid anymore that I'm going to get jealous of whatever my parents start to pay attention to next... I mean, really, can you imagine fighting with a good cause the same way you used to fight with your siblings?

So, Mom and Dad, don't take it the wrong way: Leave me alone. Believe me: Those are the new three little words parents everywhere should want to hear.

Substitute Shouldn't Mean Substandard

2012-02-25T19:10:08-05:00

Imagine this: you're at the dinner table when your children start to tell you about their new teachers. Mr. Smith is a laidback web surfer who prefers reading email over grading papers; he leaves the teaching up to the student TA. Mrs. Farn (tries to) rule the classroom with an iron fist; her every other phrase is a bellowed "Listen up, now!" Mr. Hyde is unprepared and frazzled; he stumbles over the key vocabulary and concepts, laughingly confessing that the last time he took this subject, he barely passed the class.

What would your reaction be? How long would you keep your son or daughter in those classes?

Now you find out that Mr. Smith, Mrs. Farn, and Mr. Hyde are not permanent teachers, but substitutes. They've been called in for a day or two, a week at the longest. And by next Monday, the good old teachers will be back. What do you do now? Take a sigh of relief? Say, "It's too bad they couldn't get a better sub, but you know, they have to teach on such short notice?"

Why should your reaction be so different?

Sure, the individual substitute teacher may only teach for a day or two, but the absences teachers take add up. Nationally, teachers take about 10 absences yearly (outside of school vacation days such as winter break) according to Mary Finlayson (in "The Impact of Teacher Absenteeism on Student Performance"). As a result, high school students taking six classes with different teachers could experience 60 classes with substitute teachers over the course of the school year. In poorer school districts with more teacher absenteeism, that number could be even higher -- meaning more substitute teachers for the kids who need highly qualified teachers the most. Ineffective substitute teaching is a problem that means thousands of hours of lost learning for America's students. It cannot be dismissed with a sigh and "Just wait for the teacher to come back on Monday."

In my experience, effective substitute teachers have been rare. If you criticize me for stereotyping substitute teachers in my introduction, know that they are all real people (names changed) who have taught classes I take. When I complained to my parents about substitute teachers, my dad commented defensively, "It's a thankless job with low pay and short preparation time." This is completely true. Substitute teachers are often called up on short notice, often with no prior experience with the class, and have myriad responsibilities -- taking attendance, checking off assignments, starting projects -- thrown at them. Teachers may leave incomplete or confusing lesson plans or none at all.

In most cases (except for that sub who surfed the web instead of doing anything), the substitute teacher's ineffectiveness is not from lack of trying. Rather, it is the result of lack of experience with or knowledge of the subject's curriculum. This is a problem that needs to be addressed by education administrators.

In my school district substitute teachers are required to have teaching certification -- but no knowledge qualification for the subject they are substituting for. Someone who scored a D when they last took the subject -- but has a teaching certificate -- was a substitute teacher in one of my classes. I saw the district's priority on the certificate instead of the knowledge evidenced clearly in a description of requirements for a long-term substitute position for teaching chemistry: "Must hold current WA State teaching certificate... Prefer Highly Qualified in Chemistry as well." Really, what's more important? A piece of paper (that never really guarantees good teaching anyway) or in-depth knowledge of the subject? Who do you think would be the better substitute teacher -- someone who's taught fifth grade language arts for two years with a brief stint subbing for a science teacher, or someone without a certificate who has taught science classes at technical colleges and has advanced degrees in chemistry and physics?

But one little piece of paper keeps people who may have actual academic or real world experience with a topic out of the classroom, while under qualified substitute teachers continue to pour in.

Imagine if your son or daughter starts a new conversation at the dinner table. Mr. Inik did a stunning live demonstration in class that shocked and enthralled everyone. Ms. Paige involved students in a project that went live on the web to hundreds of viewers. Mrs. Watson is so liked by students that her Facebook page has 2,000 likes (think that's unrealistic? Check out "Mr. Ito Time," a fan page set up by adoring students of a popular sub in my school district).

This vision is possible. We need to recruit better by looking further -- beyond the limiting boundaries of education certification, considering qualified volunteers with professional or academic experience. We need to reward the "thankless job" of substitute teaching with better pay and chances for permanent positions. I look forward to the day when no student comes home saying, "I didn't learn much today... we had a sub."

Teen Impact: Finalist #14

2012-01-21T15:30:50-05:00

This blog post was submitted as an entry in the Teen Impact contest and awarded as a finalist.

It all started on a stage in Long Beach, Calif. in February 2010 with a few words and a thought: The world needs "childish" thinking. At my widely watched TED Talk two years ago (TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design and is a prestigious conference and non-profit), I voiced an opinion that adults have a lot to learn from my generation. Through my work as a teacher, a student, author, activist and Huffington Post guest blogger, I see every day how true those words really are.

My speeches about youth voice admittedly stemmed from some frustration. Young people are often asked, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" and given advice about how to lead meaningful adult lives, but where's the encouragement to lead meaningful lives right now? Just think of the prevailing "let kids be kids" attitude. In the speeches that I deliver to adult audiences, I emphasize how "letting kids be kids" needs to mean letting us be everything we can be. I hope to personify that potential through the advocacy work that I do for literacy, feminism, ending world hunger and youth voice -- to literally be a walking "look what happens when you give us opportunities!" sign.

But my peers at school and around the world aren't going to be helped just by one person like me. It's too easy for audiences to pass me off as "exceptional," "a prodigy," "gifted." The point of my work is to make it clear that all youth can make "big miracles" happen.

We need a movement.

So in fall of 2010, and again in 2011, I organized the TEDxRedmond youth conference: A planning committee completely comprised of students, with all speakers 18 or under. We had speakers who had started charities, run businesses, fundraised, given speeches, taken pictures, written novels, climbed mountains -- it was a forum for the nation's best and brightest teens and the best part was that it was entirely peer-organized and driven. The ripple effects of the conference are continuing to spread. Our theme of "The Spark in All of Us" inspired the "typical teenagers" in our audience to find their inspiration.

To me, us teenagers are at the perfect crossroads of childish naivete and adult realism -- we still believe that problems can be solved, and now we also have the tools and knowledge to solve them. Alec Loorz, founder of Kids vs. Global Warming, anti-bullying activist Brigitte Berman, multimillion-dollar fundraiser Bilaal Rajan, the countless teenagers I know doing exactly that -- are our best persuasive arguments.

My work around youth voice has ranged from speaking to audiences of adults about learning from my generation, to starting a movement for peers to inspire each other. What began with a speech at a high-profile conference -- a desire to show the world that my peers and I deserve listening to -- has become a constant in all that I do. As I said in my TED Talk, "the world needs opportunities for new leaders and new ideas. Kids need opportunities to lead and succeed. Are you ready to make the match? Because the world's problems shouldn't be the human family's heirloom."

Would You Buy This for Your Daughter?

2011-08-12T12:39:19-04:00

While waiting for my mom to get out of the fitting room at Target, I started looking at clothes. Seeing nothing that looked like it would fit me (unsurprisingly, since I was standing in the middle of the women's section) I started walking toward Juniors. (Juniors is generally inclusive of teens 13 through 19, although it may, depending on the store, cater more to the upper or lower wedge of that age group.) It was while walking past the Intimates aisle that I noticed every single bra on the Juniors rack was a pushup. Even a bunch marked "Sport" were, which seemed to defy the real purpose. Whether plain black or garishly multicolored, every single one was designed to create illusory cleavage. I have nothing against padded bras in general. But my immediate thought in the store was, Why the hell does a teenage girl need one?

The issue of the over-sexualizing of girls from an early age has come to the forefront with a recent news story about model Thylane Lena-Rose Blondeau posing suggestively for the cover of Vogue magazine. Over a series of photos, the ten-year-old is shown sprawled on leopard-print cushions, wearing a skimpy gold dress, stiletto heels, and posing heavily made-up, with rouge and lipstick. She's ten years old, yet she looks scarily adult in the photos.

The question is, should we be so surprised? We've had it coming for a while now. After all, we live in a culture where the walls of any Abercrombie and Fitch store are adorned with some dude's naked torso and skimpily dressed girls, where JCPenney, Macy's, and Aeropostale's websites all feature comprehensive selections of lacy G-strings and thongs on their juniors pages. "Aerie," American Eagle's undergarments line aimed at teenage girls (According to a press release: "aerie by American Eagle is a new line of intimates and dormwear designed for girls 15 to 25 years of age"), features on its homepage "Drew--Our New Pushup Bra That Adds 2 Cup Sizes," with the heading "Double Whoa." Do fifteen-year-olds really need an extra two cup sizes?

Aerie's underwear selection isn't a whole lot better, featuring lots and lots of tiny uncomfortable looking lace thongs (with the cheery slogan, "Even more cutie for your booty!")

In a nation where we're dealing with sky-high teenage pregnancy rates, where we claim to be trying to get girls to have more positive body image and value themselves based on intellect and achievement rather than looks, are these garments sending the right message?

You may pass this off as just teenagers wanting to rebel against their parents and dress skimpily, that it's an age thing, but it has a lot to do with marketing too. A deluge of undergarment advertising -- storefront posters or Times Square ads featuring young models -- has made what used to be adult lingerie acceptable, even common, wear for teenage girls.

And where there's money to be made, companies won't stop at age 13. Abercrombie and Fitch marketed a padded pushup "triangle bikini top" to girls as young as seven.

America, you're sending girls a mixed message. On one hand you're saying to have positive body image and love who we are, on the other we're being marketed makeup and clothing that obviously turns us into someone different. We're not supposed to go after boys with looks (or really show that much skin at all), yet we're being sold "boyfriend pushups," lacy thongs, and magazines like Seventeen (which is read by girls way younger than seventeen, I'll tell you) or CosmoGirl with feature articles like "476 Ways to be Irresistible."

By creating so many illusory images of physical perfection, whether on store aisles or storefront ads, magazine covers or TV shows, we speak more to the profit margins of companies than the self-esteem of today's girls. The unsaid message of that endless rack of juniors' pushup bras? No matter what size you are, it still isn't good enough.

This issue might seem trivial, but I think the battle for girls' empowerment will not only be fought in company boardrooms and campaign rallies, the sports stadium or the conference stage. It'll be fought on the magazine covers and the storefront ads, on the designer's table and a department store aisle ... where someone else is probably wondering if teenage girls really need pushup bras.

Do We Treat History Like a Dead Language?

2011-07-28T14:18:52-04:00

A sweltering parking garage filled with wand-wielding Harry Potter enthusiasts (all waiting in line for the midnight premiere of HP and the Deathly Hallows Part 2) may not seem like the most obvious place to quiz one's sister's friends about current events, but it was still an hour until the theater doors opened and I was bored. So I started a trivia game and out popped a question that I was dying to see if anyone could answer:

"Who's Betty Ford?"

It actually wasn't such a random question. Mrs. Ford had passed away only a couple days before. It had been all over the news -- radio, television, the Huffington Post. That said, I wasn't expecting much. My mom had asked the same question to two of my sister's friends the day before to receive blank stares.

"Uh ... related to Henry Ford?" was the response.

I felt it my duty to clarify who Betty Ford was (the trailblazing First Lady who de-stigmatized treatment for addiction and breast cancer) before we moved on to the cheery topics of biology, Latin American dictators, and (eventually) Harry Potter as we finally filed into the theater and grabbed our 3D glasses.

Along with the memorable Molly Weasley vs. Bellatrix Lestrange showdown and the fervent thought that I never want to see Voldemort's face in 3D again, the response to that simple question -- Who's Betty Ford? -- stuck with me.

It seems we're not only uninformed about our present, we're ignorant of our past. The "Nation's Report Card" -- the NAEP, or National Assessment of Educational Progress -- revealed that only 13 percent of high school seniors who took the test in 2010 scored "proficient" or higher.

If we can't even demonstrate basic knowledge about our country's beginnings, why should I care that a sophomore Honors student doesn't know who Betty Ford was? Maybe because someday our grandchildren will look at us and say, "Holy cow, Betty Ford died when you were a teenager? Boy, Grandma, you're old!" just like I stared at my grandpa in awe when he said he watched Robert Frost -- that Path Not Taken dude we read in freaking HIGH SCHOOL LITERATURE! -- on TV at JFK's inauguration in 1961 (and oh P.S., that started the tradition of the inaugural poet).

History is made every day. The challenge is getting everyone to pay attention to it. Paying attention to not only the biggest headlines -- Osama bin Laden; or the saddest -- the tragedy in Norway.

Not just the Casey Anthonys and Real Housewives of the world, but the end of the space shuttle and the creation of South Sudan. The death of Betty Ford, the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, the famine in Somalia. Don't these things deserve at least as much attention as Rebecca Black's new music video, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, or even -- gasp -- the stuff we study in high school US History?

And that's where I see a big problem -- the lack of emphasis in school on the fact that history isn't all dead people and finished wars, it's Boehner vs. Obama, Iraq and Afghanistan. I would love it if we made more comparisons between current issues and issues of the past. Maybe we'd realize that sometimes, "current issues" and "past issues" are one and the same. Our world's people still fight over natural resources, kill in the name of religion, occupy regions and give them up -- just as we did "so long ago."

When I was younger, I had a tutor whose entertaining (if at times alarming) anecdotes on the Founding Fathers and modern politicians helped shape my realization that history is meant to be spoken about, not only read. Today, my parents still ask me to update them on the happenings of the world that day, and are more than happy to discuss -- or debate -- with me. I'd love to see such an environment echoed in our nation's public schools. If only we could start talking about the serious side of news with our friends, as easily as we bring up Snooki's latest exploits...

I'm not saying there's no hope. As a HuffPost devotee and a thirteen-year-old, I know that being a teenager and being an avid news-watcher are not mutually exclusive roles. Once I logged onto Facebook to be greeted by the cheery sight of a spirited conversation about the debt ceiling debacle. The wall post, by my sister's friend Airin, read: "I don't get it... How is reducing taxes and reintroducing tax loopholes for the super-rich going to help reduce our deficit?" The part that made my day was the link underneath -- "View all 62 comments."

Those comments -- hitting the same points Rachel Maddow does in a typical commentary -- were all written by high school students. The two writers doing most of the commenting debated the merits of trickle-down economics, criticized Republicans for using the term "job-creators" to describe wealthy individuals, advocated for the Gang of Six debt plan, weighed the pros and cons of economic benefit from oil companies versus environmental damage, protested deregulation of American business (Airin writing as a supporting example, "In India, Union Carbide was allowed to escape regulation. It poorly informed its Indian employees about the dangerous chemicals they were working with [...] As a result, 8000 people died from a gas leak. The governor of the region took the CEO into custody [...] but the US intervened and he went completely free" -- an incident which many other American students -- or adults -- might not know about).

Whatever your politics, I hope you can at least agree with two statements posted on this politically charged comment thread. The first one, saying "I'm obsessed with this entire conversation" and the follow-up, from Airin, saying "I'm glad we high school kids have obsession-worthy conversations. XD"

Eyes-crossed-out-from-laughing-so-hard-smile indeed (yes, that's what an XD is). We need to start more conversations that get students (and adults too!) commenting back and forth with the same enthusiasm and well-informed opinions that we see on modern music stars. By bringing current events into the classroom, everyday discussion, and social media, maybe we don't need to wait for our grandchildren's questions to remind us we should have paid more attention to current events. History is made every day. On a launch pad in Cape Canaveral, in the halls of Congress, and yes, in the millions around the globe clutching our Harry Potter glasses.

It's Not Girls' Fault

2011-07-21T19:25:15-04:00

Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, gave a TED Talk a while back, which I watched; I was impressed with her poise and interesting opinions. Her talk helped answer a very important question: why we have too few women leaders.

I would like to challenge, however, the widely held idea that since girls aren't becoming leaders as a result of naturally being less boastful, entitled, and commanding than most boys, girls need to start assuming those qualities in order to become CEOs. (That's paraphrased). This does, however, seem to be the idea -- girls don't speak up enough, take the lead enough, boast enough.

As Sheryl Sandberg pointed out, when girls try to be commanding, it's called bossy. When a girl boasts about her personal appearance or her latest work, it's being a show-off, etc. (This is all speaking in very general terms, mind you. If you haven't already watched Sheryl Sandberg's speech, do, otherwise the rest of this will be confusing). So we need to stop criticizing girls for the qualities we praise in boys.

On average (according to Sandberg) most men tend to brag about their own accomplishments and negotiate for raises far more aggressively than most women (I can tell you about people for whom this generalization does not apply, my parents being essentially the reverse of that description); when asked why they are successful, men (keep in mind the generalization here) will say that it was because of their accomplishments and hard work, whereas women will say they got lucky or they were helped along by amazing coworkers, etc. And society tends to dislike women who will buck the trend and assertively negotiate for a raise.

This is all statistically supported and that is the general trend. So what is it that I disagree with in Sheryl Sandberg's speech?

The problem I see with this is that I felt the underlying message is that women need to be more like men in order to succeed in what is still a men-dominated area (business). It needs to be okay for women to brag, to ask for raises, to be aggressive. Sandberg focused more on making society accept women when we do those things; rather than changing our expectations of what a CEO should do.

My thinking? Don't we need more CEOs who don't fly out the window with a golden parachute?

Don't we need more people in the world to stop talking about themselves and start thinking about others?

Don't we need more people who thank others profusely?

It's time we stop saying that girls need to change, and adopt those behaviors; it's time to say that boys could learn from girls. CEOs of top companies could probably use a dose of not-asking-for-raise behavior and less self-entitlement, rather than us trying to change girls in order to fit into the common mold of what we think a CEO looks like. I give speeches quite a lot about how often negatively-portrayed behaviors common to children (i.e., impulsivity and naiveté) may be positive behaviors in some situations, leading to unfettered imagination and problem-solving.

Maybe these often negatively-portrayed behaviors statistically common to women are positive things. We all love people who give credit to others for their success. Companies would probably do better with CEOs who didn't blow their own horn and ask for ridiculous salaries and new yachts every year.

In her talk, Sandberg shared an anecdote of her college European Intellectual History class, where her classmate Carrie avidly read the original works in Latin and Greek and attended all the lectures; Sandberg read them in English and attended most of the lectures; and Sandberg's brother read one book out of twelve, went to a couple of lectures, and received last-minute tutoring from Sandberg and the highly studious classmate before taking the test.

After coming out of the test, they asked each other how they did. Carrie, the undoubtedly most prepared of the three, said (quoting from the speech here), "Boy, I feel like I didn't really draw out the main point on the Hegelian dialectic." And I [Sandberg] say, "God, I really wish I had really connected John Locke's theory of property with the philosophers that follow." And my brother says, "I got the top grade in the class." "You got the top grade in the class? You don't know anything."

To me, Sandberg's speech went on to emphasize why society should make it possible for girls to have "I got top grade in the class" behavior.

My point is that the bragging brother should take a dose of humility, instead.

By the way, I totally agree with Sandberg's point that we need to stop demonizing girls for taking the lead in business/political/etc. situations. I'm not saying that girls shouldn't be confident. However, I'm saying that we need to change our expectations for CEOs (aggressive, assertive, etc.) from the current definition to one that more closely matches the best qualities of girls and boys. So--let's stop trying to get girls to change. Let's focus on changing our society.

The Shaky Marriage of Apathy and Activism

2011-06-15T10:50:14-04:00

Apathy is defined as "lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern." I worry a lot about apathy toward, or superficial interest in, world affairs -- even among the most seemingly charitably minded people. Lots of people drive a Prius, dutifully donate the occasional hundred dollars to various respectable charities, and bring a couple cans of food to their school's food drive. Maybe they buy organic food or pay an extra couple dollars for something that says "Sustainably Harvested." This is all great, and it's certainly better than nothing. But is it enough?

Aside from maybe buying "green" things, how many of these people actively advocate for issues? Turn on the TV not just to watch the Heat vs. the Mavericks, but to stay informed about the goings-on in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan (really any other part of the world besides the US)? A lot of companies are capitalizing on the "coolness" factor of doing good -- Starbucks trying to get its coffee sustainable, Target is donating 5 percent of profits to schools, etc. -- but I think something that few people have addressed is the extent of the level we really care about world affairs.

Just think what typically comes up in conversation. "How was your trip?" "We should totally go shopping!" "I bet you're disappointed by the hockey loss..." When was the last time you had a conversation about child marriages in Yemen or the need for jail reform in the U.S.? Really, when was the last time you thought of those issues? I know you must be imagining me as a strict, frowning person. I'm not trying to say that you should be puritanically informing your friends about all the problems in the world at your next party. That would be a pretty hilarious image. But when do we talk about the issues that impact people other than ourselves?

Maybe the reason politicians haven't brought up homelessness and jail reform -- two very important issues -- is because the homeless and convict communities don't exactly provide a lot of votes. Rich CEOs who can pay for campaign funding, on the other hand, do. This is why I have trouble with the idea that we should only concern ourselves with the things that affect us. Yet it's an idea which seems to have percolated through media and society. Why else do you think we mainly cover US news? It's news about ourselves. And ABC News has a "Made in America" series where they try to get people to mostly buy products made in the U.S.

That's all very well, but ABC didn't mention the fact that when products are manufactured in other nations, they may help to raise that nation's standard of living. When the standard of living rises in other nations, they often buy our products -- things like iPads and other technologies. We live in a globally interconnected society; the time for protectionism is past. We can't afford to think only of ourselves. Why not instead stand up to practices such as child labor, unhealthy work conditions, and low product quality by only giving manufacturing contracts to those factories that meet ethical standards, rather than making blanket statements about the ethics of goods produced in a certain nation?

This only-caring-about-things-that-affect-me attitude does not stop at manufacturing/economics. Reading the Facebook news feed (which yes, I know, is not an accurate reflection of humanity), there are generally a few people who post news articles/calls to action regarding a humanitarian or charitable topic; most of it is "so-and-so is in a relationship with so-and-so," pictures of random things, "I hate the -- expletive -- insert academic subject here -- homework!" etc. Sure, I post pictures of myself and random things, and I'm not going to say you're a bad person because you do too; but I just wish that people wouldn't exclusively talk about what happened at school or what they're having for dinner.

On Facebook, I see that a lot of my peers -- very smart people, in gifted programs and Honors classes, with highly educated parents -- are posting only about self-related things. An apathy toward world affairs is not an epidemic of one class or one age or one country. It can be found, on different levels, in many different people -- whether it's calling a book about women's rights in developing nations boring and deciding to read Gossip Girl books instead, or never discussing ethical issues though you may be perfectly aware of them, or knowing every detail of a dictatorial regime because you have to make a documentary about it for class, but not discussing it in any way when it doesn't pertain to your grade.

A lot of people criticized my article on the prom tradition as being too intolerant of having a good time "once in a while." The problem is that we try to have fun so often, we seem to naturally shy away from the unpleasant things in the world and avoid talking about problems (something I see a lot in school, as peer pressure can make it "uncool" or "weird" to discuss current events in conversation). We try to live in a bubble of Priuses and occasional donations, shopping trips to buy sustainably made $40 shorts with our friends, conversations about school events and neighborhood redecorations.

We have to change our concept of "doing good" as merely the useful but limited actions of making an erratic donation or petition signature, to an awareness of global issues, willingness to take action and raise awareness among our friends, advocating for lesser-known, not necessarily "cool" issues, and overall, a deeper empathy for all our fellow humans (and animals too) -- not just those in our home, school, city, state, or nation. It starts at home and at school, but by emphasizing it through society, I hope we can all realize that shifting "other people's problems" onto other people's shoulders doesn't work as well as pulling together.

I'm by no means the only person who cares about global issues. There is a huge community of like-minded youth and adults who are doing amazing things for the world. (The TED Conference is a great example of this.) I organized a youth TEDx event (independently organized TED conference), last year, called TEDxRedmond where all our speakers and committee members were middle and high school age students. As we're re-organizing the event this year, I've been heartened to see the large number of youth who want to have a voice and a platform to spread messages about important global issues.

It's up to our society to make this the norm -- not the exception.

Prom: An American Tradition Gone Awry

2011-05-22T14:59:25-04:00

The other day my family went looking for prom dresses for my sister. The first place we stopped was an expensive boutique with thousands of dresses. As I was about to step inside, Adrianna remarked casually, "This place is really crowded with dresses."

"What do you mean?" I asked, assuming she meant densely packed on hangers, or maybe not much aisle space.

"You'll see."

As it turned out, the store was a claustrophobe's nightmare -- a thin bit of waddling space alongside giant round racks of dresses zipped up in plastic garment bags, every color and style imaginable. By the time we walked out (no dress in hand), it felt like Adrianna had tried every single one of them.

She finally found her dream dress (a gleaming dark blue one-shoulder) in a less specialized department store (where the dresses also cost half as much). The emphasis was on finding something that would be long enough to also wear at a piano recital.

What's funny about my sister going prom dress shopping with the rest of my family in tow is that my parents were never that big on prom. More specifically, my dad didn't go to his because he wasn't into his high school social scene (or, as my sister translates it, he was a social outcast), and my mom grew up in '70s Communist China, where high school dance opportunities were pretty nonexistent.

The American tradition of high school prom, however, seems to have found a believer in my older sister -- along with what seems like every American news organization. World News with Diane Sawyer on ABC broadcast not one, but two prom stories -- the first to congratulate all the brave souls asking their significant others to go to prom with them, the second as a follow-up story on a boy who was suspended for trespassing on school property to post giant cardboard letters on the side of the school asking his girlfriend to go to prom with him. He's now become a celebrity, having appeared on Today, Jimmy Kimmel, and others.

As a writer, I get it. Prom has all the elements of a popular story. It reeks of all-Americanness, tension, drama. It has romance. Pretty dresses. Dancing. Limos. High school. Coming of age. But couldn't we get all that (maybe minus dancing, pretty dresses, and limos) with something that didn't cost schools tens of thousands of dollars, students valuable hours in fundraising, working-class families worry over how they could afford dress and tuxedo shopping? Maybe an awards ceremony or gala to honor the unique in-school and extracurricular accomplishments of seniors? If you wanted, you could still dress up, invite a guest or two, roll out a red carpet, have music, call it prom... But you would be congratulating and evaluating people based on what they've done for others, not just how they're dressed or who they're going with.

The current concept of prom just seems so empty. Teenagers get dressed up to go to a dance at a fancy location. It encourages social inclusion or exclusion based on your ability or inability to snag a date. I feel like schools shouldn't be taking a role in supporting dating this way -- even for seniors. And it starts way earlier. People often start by going to their junior high dances in seventh grade, maybe followed by a formal dance (my sister's was on a dinner boat in Seattle) in ninth, homecoming every year through high school, and of course, the jewel in the crown, prom in senior year. I mention this to people I've met in Europe -- this system of dances and social events -- and I haven't heard of any equivalent.

So how did the prom come about? According to this interesting article from Mental Floss, the prom actually originated in the 1800s as an effort to teach etiquette and good manners to college students. It migrated to high school students with the same goal. Mental Floss described it this way: "the senior class, dressed in their "Sunday best," gathered in the gym for tea and light refreshments, socializing and dancing under crepe paper streamers and the watchful eyes of chaperones." It only started migrating to fancy locations in the 1950s, and in the 1980s, the prom became the giant deal that it is today, with students voting on where they want their prom to be... Sometimes two years in advance. Paying hundreds -- or thousands -- of dollars for dresses and dinner and pictures and corsages.

Imagine if we took all of that effort, money, and thought that goes into designing a high school student's in-school social experience, and put that into designing a student's educational experience. There's nothing wrong with getting dressed up and having a celebration of your high school life, whether in a dance or a ceremony or a conference... I just take issue with the American obsession that is the modern day prom.

Changes Schools Should Make to Better Serve Students: A Student's View

2011-02-28T22:00:30-05:00

My mom once asked me about the first steps I would hypothetically take to make a "better school." I don't claim to be an education expert, but I do have personal opinions about the ideal school -- one I'd like to go to. Among many other things, I said that I would change school starting times, improve cafeteria lunches, and bring back recess. These would be good first steps because they help a lot of students a little bit. And they can have wide-reaching impacts.

Starting Times
Studies have repeatedly shown that everyone, especially children with developing brains, need a good amount of high-quality sleep. It's difficult to get when you have to worry about waking up at 7 in the morning to go to school. Not everyone is a morning lark, and by starting school so early, not only students but also educators have to stave off yawns throughout the day.

I was at a conference where a well-respected sleep researcher, Dr. James Maas, revealed that adolescent sleep cycles tend to begin at 3 a.m. and end at 11 a.m. Yet we're starting school at 7 or 7:30 a.m. While I wouldn't quite change school start times to 11 a.m. (since we have to consider parents who have to go to work), I think it would be reasonable to move them to 8:45 AM or after. Then hypothetically a teenager could go to bed at 12 a.m. (as many often do), wake up at 8, shower and eat breakfast, and go to school with eight rather than five or six hours of sleep.

Lunch
Another step: improve cafeteria lunches. Put a cap on the amount of sodium, fat, and calorie content allowed in each lunch. Mandate nonfat or 1 to 2 percent milk (and in smaller containers -- who really drinks that much milk?) instead of whole milk. Get rid of chocolate milk, soft drinks, and vending machines with unhealthy items. Require a certain percentage of food served be organic and/or local, and have smaller portions to help minimize cost (we all know how much food gets dumped out). Have the school's cooking classes (or maybe the entire student body) help make lunch on certain days.

A bigger step: I think it would be a good idea to have randomly assigned seating during lunch. This might be controversial among students, but the social division that occurs when students simply pick out where they want to sit can be hurtful and exclusive to students new to the school or children with difficulty making friends. Also, it seems that teachers rarely eat lunch and converse with the students. I've learned a lot from being able to have conversations with adults. So, teachers would be required to eat lunch with the students -- at least on certain days -- (and really, if they really can't stand students to the extent that they can't eat with them, should they be teaching?)

Recess
While making nutritious school lunches would be an excellent way to start combating childhood obesity, bringing back recess, at all grade levels, could do even more (as well as markedly increasing cognitive ability). In middle and high school you might have a somewhat more organized approach (depending on students, because it isn't hard to envision students simply standing around and talking to each other instead of exercising.

Perhaps instead of a dreaded required class one semester of junior high, physical education could become a fun, daily 15 to 20 minute class -- where healthy behaviors, like calisthenics, frequent exercise, jogging, and hiking, would be modeled every day. Students could get involved actively in the "curriculum," by submitting their favorite exercise activities and voting on which new things to try.

"Big" Changes
I want to talk about "big" changes I would make in education (if I were in a position of incredible power!) -- multiple, age-independent, subject-based grade levels; online learning; and authority hierarchy in school.

Age-Independent Grades
I took two electives recently at Redmond Junior High. Everyone asked what grade I was in. It would go something like this:
"Adora, what grade are you in?"
"Ninth grade."
They look incredulously at my apparently seventh-grade style of dress (i.e., sweaters and shirts vs. tank tops and jackets) and say, "You're in ninth grade?"
"Yeah," I nod quickly, and explain, "I skipped a grade."

[Actually, it's feasible that I skipped two grades, since 12-year-olds are often put in seventh grade (depending on when your birthday is) but usually I say I just skipped one, since I'm now thirteen.]

One's grade in school decides what you'll learn and the level at which you'll learn it. It decides when you'll graduate from high school and even the friends you'll make (most of your friends are probably in your grade or close to it). My question is why your age, not your aptitude, should determine your grade -- and why grade covers all subjects, when people have varying degrees of ability and interest across subjects. (Yes, there's a reason kids are always asked, "What's your favorite subject?")

I am at a loss as to the benefits of putting a group of people of approximately the same age -- but of varying aptitudes -- into one room where they will all learn the same thing. The quicker students will sit bored while the teacher re-explains a concept they already know from their voracious reading, while the slower students will be confused and left out by the rapid pace at which everyone else seems to be progressing.

My parents homeschooled my sister and me for many years. Why? Because the local school insisted that I, being three, should go to preschool, and my sister, being five, should go to kindergarten. The problem? You learn your alphabet in preschool, and I was already reading chapter books. At the same time, however, I was not so far along with math and science. In other words, I was not "advanced" in everything. Yet many gifted and talented programs try to put students into all-around advanced classes.

Wouldn't it make more sense to be able to take some kind of test (oral, written, multiple choice, or informal discussion with a counselor) to determine what level you would be? Maybe then I could have taken a test which would have allowed me to learn at second grade reading and history level, and kindergarten or first-grade math and science.

To me, this approach makes far more sense than sorting students into grades based on when your birthday is. Would you ever tell a son or daughter, little brother or sister, "You weren't born before September 1st, so I'm not going to help you learn your alphabet"? Yet that is what our school system does every year.

Placement tests to sort students into levels would put students with a larger knowledge base into higher grades, but a large knowledge base doesn't necessarily mean a love of learning. I'd propose that honors/gifted status would then be determined by a student's desire to learn and exhibition of independent learning traits (i.e., reading a lot outside of school, tracking current events, etc.). For instance, if you're a 10-year-old who's been advanced to seventh-grade level mathematics, you'd be placed in the honors math class. The material covered would be the same as the seventh-grade level math (because honors classes would no longer have to serve only as a means of providing harder material -- you'd be placed in a higher grade if you had that large knowledge base), but there would be more discussion, extracurricular activity, etc.

I personally think that there is no compelling benefit to having an age-based grade system. It could be argued that some poor little advanced 3-year-old, taking language arts classes with 8-year-olds, will feel different and lonely--but 10 years ago, you would have found 3-year-old Adora Svitak taking classes at Renton's H.O.M.E. Program (a public program offering classes for homeschooled children)... with 6, 7, and 8-year-olds, among others -- and feeling fine. Diversity should be more than a buzz phrase. If students are prepared to make friends with and learn from those younger (or older) than them, we have made true progress in embracing diversity.

Authority Hierarchy in School
I definitely think that students need to get involved in decision-making on a deeper level, beyond simply being on an associated student government or student council. At the TEDx conference I organized last year, TEDxRedmond, several speakers (all of whom were under 18), spoke movingly on their opinions about education and certain ways their schools had supported and/or failed them.

In many countries, schools are preparing students to participate in a democratic environment; yet schools themselves tend to be extremely autocratic, with all high-level decisions being made by adults. Let students have a voice -- use online technology to have students give constructive feedback to their teachers and school administrators. Implement student suggestions. Put students on school district boards. Allow students to help form curriculum and get their ideas on which assignments work best for them. Hold regular meetings where students are invited to speak to their school officials.

Online Learning
Every school district should have an online learning framework, so that "blended learning" (partially online, partially in-person) can be an option for students. Students could read more of the fact-based lesson material online, so that when they came to class in-person, time could be used on higher-order thinking skills like experiments, projects, and the like. A lot of excellent learning takes place when students are face-to-face with each other and a teacher, yet there are situations where students may not always be able to make it to class. Should students not be able to continue doing any of their work simply because of a school flu epidemic, school staff on strike, snow days, or absences?

Other obvious benefits of incorporating online learning:
- Teachers could post assignments, students could submit responses, and teachers could grade them, all online, without worrying about endless stacks of paper.
- Students could keep up with what was going on in class and see instant grade updates.
- Teachers could post multiple-choice tests, which can be easily computer-graded, online, and save themselves from the tedious work of checking multiple choice answers.
- Students could review materials from past lessons before a test.
- Teachers could easily post links and resources online for students to view.
- Parents could keep updated on what was happening in class.
- By using tools like Elluminate, Skype, GoToMeeting, chat, Google Voice, etc., teachers could easily stay in touch with students (particularly when students had questions).

As a student at an online public high school, I see my teachers using many of these tools. Many of my teachers have Google Voice as well as embeddable chat tools, so we can quickly get in contact.

Of course, all these changes, big and small, will cost money. Where will that come from? By shifting more content online, we could cut some of the spending that would go toward giant reams of paper and industrial-size printers and copiers. Maybe we could levy a tax on soft drink and junk food purchases, to pay for healthier school lunches. (We could call it "Buy a Twinkie for Yourself, Give a Whole Wheat Sandwich to a Student!")

Finally, students should take international studies classes, since it's often shocking how little Americans know about other countries. Let's do a pop quiz. I bet most Canadians can name our president. Can you name the prime minister of Canada? It's rare to find someone who hasn't heard of "California" or "New York" before. Can you name a single state of India? It's easy enough for most people to find the U.S. on a map. Can you find New Zealand, recently affected by a devastating earthquake? Or Afghanistan, where we're currently at war?

I know this post is quite long, and because of the extreme municipal-level management of schools, many of these changes are seemingly impossible. In the coming days and years, I'm hoping we can work together to create a better school -- not just for today's kids, but for tomorrow's.