The Kids Are All Right
Atlantic, The, July, 2004 by Tom Carson
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In no other culture does secondary education evoke the enchantment and trauma that high school does for Americans. As the single collective experience that most of us in this diffuse society are likeliest to share, it's also our handiest analogy for virtually every social realm we encounter as adults, no matter how exalted.
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Showbiz? High school with money, People and Entertainment Weekly tell us. Politics? High school with power—and man, could Grover Norquist use a wedgie. For all I know, the people in today's military call it high school with guns—which, after Columbine, I realize may sound redundant. The basic difference is that our fellow developed countries treat secondary school as the beginning of responsibility. If little Jean-Pierre's fate is to be a mechanic, the stench of cooked goose is mingling with the incipient reek of motor oil by the time he turns fifteen. But for American teens high school ...
