''Modern'' Language
Mr. Linderman,
As a parent and a teacher, I couldn't agree with you more. I think this is a major social issue that parents, kids, schools, and community leaders need to address. It definitely starts with the parents, but I also see that it is a generational issue, and if your parent's parents talk that way, it's a pretty sure bet you will too, unless someone snaps you out of it. All you have to do i spend about 5 minutes in the check-out line at Fareway to see the old fools beget fools, beget fools rule coming to fruition. Don't get me wrong, I don't blame the kids, nor do I judge their parents beyond their own choices. We are all products of our upbringing, after all, but after a while, you either choose to make a better life for yourself and your kids, and then do the work it takes to make that happen, or you don't.
Case in point: I am shocked most afternoons when I hear the language used, and see the way some of the parents dress (or don't dress) when they come to pick up their kids after school. I have been sworn at, flipped off, and down right insulted to my face countless times throughout my teaching career, and more often than not, the kids are right there to witness it. It's really just sad that these little ones don't get better examples and role models to look up to, especially when all too many of them have only TV and movies as back-up parents when mom and dad are ''too busy'' to just sit down and read a good book with them, or sit on the porch swing together, or play a nice game of catch. . . I worry what kind of generation we are bringing up these days--what with the written word constantly digressing and contracting into text message format, and spoken language morphing into some contrived form of ghetto trash. Maybe it will take a college education to snap some of these kids out of it if they intend to take on a prefessional path in life. I honestly don't know. So many of them go to college barely able to write an essay with correct grammar, let alone a well-thought-out thesis, spell basic vocabulary, or even make change for a dollar for that matter. We teachers these days are so busy trying to teach to tests and raise scores, play social worker and make sure little Tommy has on socks and shoes, and a safe home to arrive at after school. There aren't enough hours in the day to carve out even a little time to just teach and do it well, or as thoroughly as one truly wants to, or knows they should be able to.
What really kills me is that for so many kids, by middle school, the foul mouth is accompanied by the deepest sense of entitlement and an equally alarming lazy attitude that you just want to cry. These things together, in my opinion, are a social molotov cocktail just waiting to go off in our own living rooms. We are all so concerned about saying something that might offend someone's religion, sexual ''orientation'' or preference, and or race, but most kids see nothing wrong with using an occasional, or even all-too-frequent expletive, even in the presence of an authority figure. That, and if they aren't saying it with their mouths, their cloths (or lack there of)--as someone already mentioned--and/or what is written and/or advertised on their clothes, says more than their mouths ever could.
Bottom line: Kids these days aren't kids long enough, and parents aren't parents often enough. We've got a generation of kids who are lacking so much, but I try every day to give at least some of them a push in the right direction. I encourage all of you to do the same. It's not just their future at stake. . .
