Middle Class Parents example essay topic

Judith Richmond Explaining A Concept English 1510, Composition 1 Mr. James Barry M.A. Juvenile Truancy For too many youngsters, cutting classes is the first slip down the icy slope toward delinquency. As early as 1915, sociologists were calling truancy the 'kindergarten of crime. ' A 1979 study of 258 adult re-offenders showed that 78% had been arrested for truancy, and two-thirds of the remainder admitted they had been chronically truant but were never arrested. (Gavin 1997) There is a sense that parents fear truancy as if it were an infectious disease that will strike their own kids if it isn't eradicated.

In the book, Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class, Barbara Ehrenreich wrote that middle-class parents now see education as the only way they can help their youngsters succeed. Gone are the days when kids who hated school could still find a secure home in the military or a high-paying job on the line in the factory. A high-school diploma today is no guarantee of a job that pays enough to raise a family. Concerned parents worry that high school graduation is merely the minimum their kids must attain. So it is easy to understand why people are quick to demand drastic action to bring truancy under control. Yet when challenged to think of all the reasons that a youngster might cut school, it quickly becomes clear that solving the problem defies a quick-fix, get-tough approach.

Certainly, there are kids who cut classes to hang out with friends and, left unchecked, today's lark can become tomorrow's chronic bad habit. There are also kids whose parents simply do not care - maybe Mom and Dad hated school, too, and consciously or unconsciously send that message. But tough talk will do little to help the kids who fail at school because of abuse at home. Youngsters who endure physical, emotional and sexual abuse at the hands of their parents may well face more of it if the parents are forced to pay fines or do jail time if the youngster cuts classes. Sometimes parents are not the only causation for truancy, A detective in Lansing, Michigan, who was investigating the chronic truancy of two adolescent girls, discovered that a 27-year-old man had lured them into spending time at his apartment during the day.

And what of the youngsters who are bullied every day, forced to hand over their lunch money? We know how merciless kids can be when teasing those who are different - too tall, too short, too fat, too skinny, too light, too dark. Imagine kids that are gay, some who are taunted and attacked every day for being a 'fag. ' A Massachusetts Department of Education Youth Risk Behavior survey in 1997 showed that 22% of gay, lesbian and bisexual students reported skipping school because of safety concerns, compared to 4% of their peers. A U.S. Department of Health and Human Services report showed that 28% of gay and lesbian youth drop out of school because they do not feel comfortable there. (Boston Public Schools 2000) Think what it must be like to sit in classes each day if you are unable to read.

While statistics on the illiteracy rate in the United States are hard to come by, kids who have not mastered this basic skill must find the classroom a torture chamber. What if the other kids find out? What if the teacher ridicules me in front of them? Many kids suffer from learning disorders and emotional illness. Then factor in the physical problems suffered by the millions of kids whose parents have no health insurance. Then there are the artistic kids, the creative dreamers who find it hard to conform.

Even as the information and education industries hunger for talented newcomers, many of our schools are still preparing youngsters for manufacturing jobs that no longer exist or retail jobs that do not pay a living wage. As states struggle to deal with the deepest cuts in tax revenues since the Great Depression, the arts are often the first programs that schools sacrifice. In 1997, the National Center for Education Statistics reported that 80% of U.S. schools did not offer any dance classes and 74% had no classes in theater. Only about half the schools offered visual arts and music at least three or four times a week.

(National Center for Education Statistics 1999) Most shocking of all perhaps is that schools in the United States administer corporal punishment between 1 and 2 million times a year. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, corporal punishment may adversely affect 'a student's self-image and school achievement and that it may contribute to disruptive and violent student behavior". Far too many schools also suffer from a decaying infrastructure and inferior technology. When schools increasingly seem like prisons, we shouldn't be surprised when the inmates try to escape.