Adolescence, Underachievement & Incentives
Newt Gingrich declares that it’s time to end adolescence and rediscover the value in moving our children from childhood directly to young adulthood. Mr. Gingrich writes in Business Week:
Newt Gingrich: Let’s End Adolescence: Adolescence was invented in the 19th century to enable middle-class families to keep their children out of sweatshops. But it has degenerated into a process of enforced boredom and age segregation that has produced one of the most destructive social arrangements in human history: consigning 13-year-old males to learning from 15-year-old males.
…
The fact is, most young people want to be challenged and given real responsibility. They want to be treated like young men and women, not old children. So consider this simple proposal: High school students who can graduate a year early get the 12th year’s cost of schooling as an automatic scholarship to any college or technical school they want to attend. If they graduate two years early, they get two years of scholarships. At no added cost to taxpayers, we would give students an incentive to study as hard as they can and maximize the speed at which they learn.
Once we decide to engage young people in real life, doing real work, earning real money, and thereby acquiring real responsibility, we can transform being young in America. And our nation will become more competitive in the process.
I featured what I believe to be Mr. Gingrich’s core argument, that ending the concept of adolescence (essentially of “teenage-hood”) we can provide real incentives for young Americans to pursue personal and academic achievement beyond what we today consider the norm.
I think the argument is a well reasoned one, and while Mr. Gingrich’s incentive proposals are perhaps a bit unconventional, the nature of adolescence is one well worth exploring as we struggle to define “academic excellence” in the 21st century.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed and staying up-to-date with future posts.
