Education community neutral about part-time work, friends and electronic media's influence on teens, UD prof says
While great attention is given large scale teenage problems like drug and alcohol abuse, pregnancy and suicide, more teenagers are affected by everyday choices about part-time work, friendships and electronic media. All have enormous influence on the academic performance of adolescents, but most of the time the education community is neutral about these issues, a University of Delaware professor says.
In "A Generation in Crisis?" published in a recent issue of Daedalus, Robert Hampel, interim director of the UD School of Education, looks at how adolescents spend their free time and asks why educators aren't more concerned about it, in light of the role schools play in influencing students choices in these three areas.
"Each of the three pursuits can hamper performance in school, and that jeopardy affects far more youth than are imperiled by most of the indicators of well-being often cited. Nearly everyone has friends, watches television or works, unlike the incidence of suicide, crime, early pregnancy and other misfortunes," Hampel says.
"Most public high schools are officially neutral in regard to peers, electronic media and part-time work," he continues. "Decisions about the best ways to use time apart from teachers are up to the individual; in exchange for seven hours or so of attendance in school, educators cede the remaining hours. But, schools are, unofficially, an integral part of the decisions youth make in regard to friends, work and leisure."
PART-TIME WORK
"Part-time work offers meager educational benefits and rarely enhances academic achievement," Hampel says. "Working as a store clerk or in a fastfood restaurant entails constant repetition of fairly uninteresting tasks."
Students who work more than 20 hours a week jeopardize their grade-point averages, regardless of what sort of student they were before they began working, he says, and 60 percent of employed teens acknowledge that working interferes with course reading and writing. More than half say that working makes it harder to stay alert in class.
But, while many educators regret that youth work to buy cars, clothes and music, Hampel adds that schools often help make employment possible.
"The brief time required for homework (the national average is approximately four hours per week) leaves many hours for paid work," he says. In a student's junior and senior years, when almost everyone is eligible to work, many students have earned almost all the credits they need for graduation or have already been accepted into college. Some schools even accommodate seniors' priorities by allowing an 'early out' at or before noon for workers.
"Furthermore," Hampel says, "schools could hardly oppose part-time employment when a fraction of their own teachers hold second jobs. A strong stand by the school against unlimited teen employment would strike most parents as hypocritical and intrusive."
FRIENDS
The status of different groups-"crowds" to which dozens of students feel allegiance consumes a huge amount of time and energy for teens. Different crowds exert different effects on academic effort and achievement, Hampel says. "Alienated students usually spurn high grades and hard work," he says. "The attitudes of the elite, especially athletes, extracurricular stars and the most popular, seem to set the norm that is followed not only by them but by others on the fringes of their groups.
"Good grades are not necessarily unacceptable; many popular and athletic kids earn high grade-point averages. What is taboo is striving too hard, too transparently to earn those grades," he says.
The influence on social groups is hardly surprising, given the many opportunities for socializing when hundreds or thousands of youth fill a building every day, Hampel says.
But within schools, decisions such as whether or not students are grouped by ability and what areas in a school students choose to gather all affect socializing, Hampel says.
Furthermore, extracurricular activities and sports teams that powerfully shape adolescent crowds and cliques all depend on sponsorship by the school. Schools that build their master schedule around popular pursuits- such as band and chorus-and those who allow varsity athletes to take gym class at the end of the day when they may have to leave school early for sports also play a role in socialization.
"Schools not only make it possible for some cliques to exist, they repeatedly heighten the visibility and prestige of students who are 'stars,'" Hampel says.
TELEVISION AND ELECTRONIC MEDIA
"It is easy to exaggerate the effects of television and other electronic media," Hampel says. "But the habits it encourages are at odds with the skills necessary for thoughtful analysis and understanding."
With images on a television screen changing every nine seconds on average, "the pace of television is too rapid for reflection. Sustained thought is not required from television viewers and is rarely seen in television characters," he says.
"Television is antithetical in other ways to what is necessary to use one's mind well," Hampel writes. "If learning is often sequential and linear, viewing has no prerequisites. If learning is a type of apprenticeship with close oversight by a knowledgeable adult, co-viewing of shows with parents is uncommon. If learning thrives with confidence that the world is a safe place to explore and master, television heightens apprehension of the perils and dangers awaiting."
Educators are not up in arms about electronic media, Hampel says, because teachers usually prefer to accept and capitalize on the media that kids like. "In many class discussions, references to and digressions about television shows abound. In place of writing, some assignments offer the choice of making a video," he says.
"One reason why so few educators fight the pernicious effects of part-time employment, peer pressure and the media is the awareness that more severe risks await many youth after school," he concludes.
In place of a job, some kids go home to dismal poverty; instead of peer pressure, some face pressure to fight, steal and take drugs; some families find that having kids sit in front of the television keeps them out of mischief, Hampel says.
"How can schools be more assertive when the menace from part-time work, television and friends is less transparent?" Hampel asks.
"If public schools," he concludes, "have various reasons to think twice before questioning the personal pursuits of students, educators ignore them at a price. Their reasons for not fighting those threats to mental exertion are not foolish, but educators tacitly condone part-time employment, electronic media and peer pressure. They have taken a stand, tolerating risks that deserve to be better measured, better understood and better combated."
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For press release information, contact: Beth Thomas [email protected] (302) 831-8749 April 9, 1999
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