Kids Learn How to Act Like Adults--Or Better
Together around the clock for 10 days, they explored the great controversies of our time. They cemented friendships. They learned to speak their minds and ask questions--no matter how dumb--in a quest for knowledge and truth.
The shy ones came at least part way out of their shells. And some found their fixed opinions dislodged on issues such as affirmative action.
Like a forge where raw ore is melted and refined, the Knowledge and Social Responsibility workshop that ended at UC Irvine last week tested the mettle of 48 high school seniors. The result was young people fired with knowledge and commitment to do something to make the world a better place.
Becoming an adult is an inevitable rite of passage. With or without help, you do it. Many of the teen-agers seemed at first so hesitant, so worried about being “cool,” cute or smart, or simply fearful of living in dorm rooms with the first Anglos, Asians, Latinos or African-Americans many had ever known. When I returned on the last day, I saw kids beginning to blossom into independent-minded people, exploring their own ideas--not those of parents, siblings or mentors.
It was a sure and speedy evolution, accomplished by a rigorous dawn-to-midnight schedule for 10 intense days. They learned how to do research in a college library. They learned to question established views and to debate issues, often taking sides with which they did not agree.
As they shared their final thoughts in a campus classroom last week, I wished that every teen-ager could be so lucky as to spend 10 days soaking up knowledge, pushed by compassionate professors and college students to try a little harder, and encouraged to try to make a difference in this world.
“We’re responsible for what the world is going to be,” said Mary Davis, a junior in UCI’s School of Social Science and one of the program’s five team leaders who guided, cajoled, counseled and comforted the kids.
“There are a lot of problems out there in the world and I want you guys to go out and conquer them.”
Many who trooped to the podium for the “speak-out” dissolved in tears, overcome at the prospect of severing ties with the closest friends they’d ever had. A large roll of toilet paper dwindled to near nothing as it was lobbed from one tearful participant to another.
Qui Nguyen, a senior at Garden Grove’s La Quinta High, walked shyly to the front of the class amid shouts from the crowd calling him “the smartest man in the world.”
“I just wish the whole world could see what I see,” the reed-thin boy said in a trembling voice. “There is so much diversity . . . and we all get along so well.”
One young woman put her finger on a dilemma that others could not quite express as this crucible experience drew to a close. “Your parents are going to see you, but they aren’t going to know who you are now,” she said.
They must stay in touch and support each other to ensure that the lessons they have learned are retained, and that the fire to become activists is not doused in the routine of life or the disapproval of others, she said.
They must not be daunted, not even in the difficult times ahead, team leader Michael Flynn told them. “We came here 10 days ago in the postwar era, when everything is peachy keen with the Russians,” said the UCI psychology major who served as an electrician for five years in the Navy before starting college.
“Here we are, just over a week later, and there is a major crisis in the world,” he said, referring to the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq. “I’m glad to know there are (48) minds that are going to be thinking about this instead of watching ‘Gilligan’s Island’ reruns.”
Going back to their homes and schools would be a tougher task than he could even imagine, Flynn said. Mindful of the undertow of peer pressure in the final year of high school ahead of them, Flynn swore an oath: “If nobody in your high school wants to listen to you, I am here. Call me, and I’ll go to your high school and buy you lunch.”
With a little help from their friends, these youngsters just may keep the flame alive.
