Fun to read about these memories...
I spent my summers in Lodi, CA during the late 70s and early 80s and during dove season we would ride across town with shotguns tucked through the handle bars of our bikes. When we were 14, we were buying shotgun shells at the local drug store and taking our guns into the local donut shop for a freshly baked glaze donut and hot chocolate.
I teach in a high school today, and while I feel we are doing many things better than before, there are a lot of things we are doing that is causing harm to our young people.
In short, as a society, we are infantilizing our young people and removing all opportunities for "real" responsibility from them.
Hunting and shooting is just the tip of the iceberg. Take into consideration that today most teenagers do not receive their driver's license until 18 in lieu of 16. Most teens do not get their first minimum wage job until 19. In California, school districts have the right to deny or approve the opportunity for their students to work. EVERYONE under the age of 18 MUST have a school approved work permit in order to get a job. ALL student must attend school until age 18 or graduation --the only exception is to pass the GED, which is given in Fresno once a year and not offered by school districts because if they allow students to leave early they lose ADA (money).
In essence, we are creating baby-like adults who have cell phones, drink alcohol, do drugs, have sex, and have ZERO RESPONSIBILITY. Until that is, one of these baby-like adults picks up a gun at a school and shoots someone.
Guess I am kind of a rebel, but I am currently working to combat and hopefully reverse this situation by creating an Engineering and Construction Academy. The purpose of this Academy is to give opportunities for responsibility and in turn transform these baby-like adults into young adults. We are going to offer and pay for driver's licenses for our students as soon as they are eligible (age 16) who maintain a "B" average, have them earn a 10 hour OSHA Certification Job Safety Card, offer them summer and after school internships in the Construction Industry, and upon graduation, give them Industry Validated Certification so that they can go directly to work if they so choose.
Of course I am not doing this alone. My partner and I (another teacher) have over $750,000 in industry sponsors that range from the local plumber to the nationally and internationally recognized unions. We have written two grants totaling 8.5 million dollars to build a new campus and hope to become a model program for the state.
The baby-like adults that we are creating are screaming out for opportunity and responsibility. In many ways, these kids are like hunting dogs. If you want them to hunt, ya gotta get them out into the field as young pups. Ya gotta expose them to birds and the gun at an early age. Ya gotta build desire to go after that bird and ya gotta make it feel like they are in control of some element of the hunt so that they are having fun too. The best way to train a dog is to make the training feel like its not really training. Every limitation you place on a dog (or a kid), will take that much more freedom away from them when they are running in the field --and everyone knows you can't make a whipped dog run.
Hell, Delmar Smith should have been a high school teacher.
Last edited by David Dabaco; 03/08/08 01:09 PM.
