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2 american high school: teenagers and scholastic journalism In the 1985 film The Breakfast Club, writer and director John Hughes tells the story of five high school students suffering through a full day of ­ Saturday detention overseen by the school’s principal, Richard Vernon. The high school is located in a fictitious Illinois suburban community, and each of the (all white) students clearly represents a different segment of the high school population. Each student actually defines him- or herself as one of five ­ distinctive types—a criminal, a princess, a brain, an athlete, and a basket case. As the movie progresses, however, all of them come to believe they are not so different from one another, eventually realizing they share more in common than they could have imagined when their day of detention began. Principal Vernon does not, it seems, see the five young adults as that ­ different from one another either. In fact, in a conversation with the school janitor, Vernon reveals exactly how he views the students he is paid to oversee: “You think about this: When you get old, these kids—when I get old—they’re gonna be runnin’ the country. . . . Now this is the thought that wakes me up in the middle of the night. That when I get older, these kids are gonna take care of me.” The janitor’s response sums up the fear many adults have of American youth: “I wouldn’t count on it.” As Vernon contemplates this statement, the film cuts to students sitting around the library discussing the status of their virginity. The American people have long had a deep-seated fear that their youth were not up to the demanding task of running the nation. In popular ­ culture, this fear has been explored through countless television shows and movies dealing with teenagers during their high school years. On film, this exploration has frequently taken the form of a subgenre of high school ­ dramas in which an idealistic teacher challenges and transforms his or her often underprivileged students. Such films include Blackboard Jungle (1955); To Sir, with Love (1967); Stand and Deliver (1988); Dead Poets Society (1989);­ Dangerous Minds (1995); and Freedom Writers (2007). In another form, Childers_02.indd 28 22/06/12 4:33 PM movie depictions of high school have followed the pattern of The Breakfast Club, exploring the social and cultural complications of adolescence. This­ second genre has included such notable movies as Grease (1978); Fast Times at ­ Ridgemont High (1982); Pretty in Pink (1986); Boyz in the Hood (1991); Dazed and Confused (1993); and Juno (2007). In addition to movies, rarely has there been a time in which at least one major television show was not devoted to the lives of high school–aged young people.1 Every American­ generation has been raised on at least one televised drama detailing the travails of ­ adolescents and their conflicts with adults who often struggle to make them ­ better. Over the years, such television shows have included Leave It to Beaver; ­ Welcome Back, Kotter; Family Ties; Beverly Hills 90210; Dawson’s Creek; That 70’s Show; and Friday Night Lights. These shows have certainly gotten ­ grittier over the years, but the general theme has remained the same: young people must survive adolescence and be transformed into respectable adults. If our popular culture is any indication, the American people have a great deal of anxiety about helping their young become productive adult citizens. Since the end of the nineteenth century, the arduous task of transforming young people into responsible adults has increasingly fallen on the­ shoulders of teachers who work in the American educational system. For more than a half century now, the overwhelming majority of adolescents in the United States have done a good bit of their growing up in public schools. Despite recent governmental policies allowing families to use federal school vouchers to send their children to private schools, the U.S. Department of­ Education noted in a June 2008 report that, in fact, 87 percent of all schoolage children in grades K–12 still attend public schools.2 So if one wants to get a better understanding of the changing nature of democratic engagement , as seen through the eyes of American youth, the public school system seems to be the place to look. This chapter outlines exactly where and how I plan to pay attention to youth in public schools. This book is about how the democratic assumptions of successive generations of American youth changed between...

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