Questioning of Generation WTF?!

    As some of you know, I am an English teacher.  This is my seventh year and over time, working with teenagers has been a challenge.  When I taught high school, there would be students that would try to test my patience, but the overall majority were hard working and respectful.  Over the years, I've seen and stayed connected to former students that are thriving.  Those students were only about four to six years removed from when I had them. But, I always felt like they were great kids and hoped to have kids of my own just like them.
    However, in the past three years, I have noticed a significant shift in the teenage population.  Aside from the suburban district I work in, I have noticed how most teenagers behave and view the world.  From the Mall to restaurants, I just feel like they are all running a damn muck.  They are cursing loudly, with half their ass hanging out, texting and  just being a public annoyance. I shutter to think I've become like those older adults that shake their fist at the "young whippersnappers." cause I'm not that much older.  But the reality is that these teenagers are rude, self absorbed, disrespectful, lazy, cruel and lack character. When I was that age I had my fun but this is something else. And because of this I have dubbed them "Generation WTF?!"
     In the early nineties there was Generation X, all suped up on overpriced coffee and the yuppie lifestyle which was a gift from the Baby Boomer generation. Then there is Generation Y, where the proliferation of communication exploded  because of the internet and cell phones which changed the way we interacted with world.  But what of this generation? These teens have access to the world generations before never had.  They acquire and share EVERYTHING without a thought, with a click of a button. They are constantly pulled in to each other but completely oblivious to the real world.  How did this happen?  Why did this happen?
      During lunch, me and the girls at work talk about our students and  how clueless they, which in itself is annoying.  Although our biggest complaint is the lack of respect with their slick talk,  the ironic part is that these are biggest groups of sissys EVER!  Their parents fight every low grade despite the fact it was earned, or a punishment for bad behavior cause their kids feelings were hurt.  LIKE REALLY? WTF?!?!  They come to school to just socialize and get pissed off if WE interrupt THEM! They ask me questions like " Why do we have to take English?"  I usually pause to gain composure and then reply "Because you speak English..."  When did it become acceptable to even talk back to a teacher?  Have these children no fear of what their parent might do or say?  Have they no shame and want to embarrass themselves?  Based on what we all see, we know the answers to these questions.  But how did we get here?  What happened at the turn of the millennium that our American teenagers are a damn mess?!
    Yea there is "Jersey Shore" and that is a disaster but they are all adults they can do what they please. But our teens are seeing and doing things they aren't ready for.  Not like doing things beyond your years  is new, but the access to what can be experienced has grown. There has been a lot of controversy about the new show on MTV called "Skins."  The first episode showed spoiled pampered rich kids humping all over the place and selling drugs.  MTV says it a show that shows the real problem of teenagers in America today.  Like really?  Are u saying having poor self esteem cause your rich parents are taking too many prescription pills to notice you is a pressing issue for ALL the youth?  Now when I was a kid, I was not allowed to watch "Beverly Hills 90210" because of the subject manner, but nothing like what is been showed on this show compares. There was a kiddie porn warning because the next episode will show a "17 year old" boy's bare ass on screen.  Like really WTF?!  What need is something like that fulfilling for our country?
     You really want to show the problems of the American teenager, then show them at the unemployment line after they get out of high school because the jobs they qualify for are overseas now.  Or how about showing someone getting an AIDS diagnosis.  Or the Cool Kids at the funerals of the friends they had that have died of drug overdoses.  Or parents homes foreclosing and the kids living in a state of flux.  There are so many more important issues, yet our kids aren't getting it.  They are living in their social bubble with no desire to move beyond it. And nobody at home is leading them that direction either because they are too tried from working to get that new iPad to shut them up or bribe them to do better in school.  Or the parents are right next to them trying to get a do over for their own teen years.  Although this is rant about some of my students, it is also meant to vent the frustration in knowing our collective futures are suppose to be left in the hand of these teenager once they become adults. That prospect is a scary one cause I don't know if Generation WTF?! is up to the task...
Till next time.....

Miss Amina Diva