I've been pushed to think about juvenile delinquency this this past week. Starting with my visit to my elementary and junior high. With all the nostalgic thoughts I went and chat with some of my old teachers, and particularly with my 6th grade teacher. It's been awhile since my last visit, about two years ago. Things have more or so changed. The building is now better painted, better equipped. The teachers too, are faithful staying in the school, one of them is the teacher.
On and on we talked about the past and the present, to the point that we compared them. She told me that the best class she taught is ours -- It was her first class when she started teaching in St.Caroline. She also told me that our juniors are getting more and more uninterested in studying. There are many which caused this, and one of the main thing is the internet, particularly online games. She frowns upon hearing her students talking more about Warcraft DoTA, Seal, and many other game titles than about their falling grades.
Okay, maybe it is a bit "nerdy", if you say so, but I thought about it, and I agree. Of course, in my younger days we don't always talk about grades and school subjects, but we talked about other things too, say cartoon for instance. In my days, Sunday televisions still show A LOT of cartoons and kids show. I could get up at 5 in the morning and watch Ultraman believing in hope and kicking an alien's ass, and continue watching Doraemon teaching Nobita about life, until just before midday to see Power Rangers team-working to beat a terror in a form of gigantic monster. Nowadays, I got up at 10 once, and see gossip shows on a national television.
Whether you agree or not, it MADE us.
I used to make a bet with my best buddy when we were at 5-6th grade, Rp.500 for whoever gets the higher score in a test. I doubt kids do that nowadays. Yeah, maybe it's a just a chump-change, but even then we were competing for something more than the Rp.500, it was a competition to BE BETTER.
Our parents used to think it's bad to play video games at a friend's house so often, but when I think of the future, I'd prefer my children to do the same, rather than going to an internet cafe playing online games, they could be a subject of MANYMANYMANY bad influences there.
Guess what ? Our generation's degenerating also. The Merriam-Webster Online defines it as "to sink into a low intellectual or moral state". Yesterday I attended Law Faculty's Students Representative meeting. What was going on there only made me like Captain Picard up there.
Honestly, the meet wasn't well prepared, there were many things that had to be questioned. It wasn't just the comittee, the participants were also "morally low". Yes, they got some good points about what they object, but half the time it'd be someone commenting and objecting on something pointless.
I always believe that a part of exposing a problem is also to try and provide the solution. I honestly don't know their motive when they did that yesterday, was it to look smart, or did it really bother them that much.
I'm reading a book by Eric Fromm, The Heart of Man. It's about human capacity to hate, to destroy, basically, to do everything that is opposite of love. It was in the 1964 when he finished the book, but one statement caught my eye. In the foreword, he stated that "...the present-day mood of violence which is manifested in juvenile delinquency...", I thought for a while, and a bit amazed that the same problem is still around, even maybe getting worse.
In my mind, juvenile delinquency is not only when a child is disobedient to his/her parents advice or when it is only criminal law violation, but when a kid rides a motorcycle without a riding license (most times with no helmet too), when students got in a fight, when a minor smokes, when there's bullying, when a minor smokes in a non-smoking area (duh..).
I had classmates from my elementary who you could say is a bully. You know those cliché stories about bullies being unsuccesful later in their life ? Guess what, they are true. One of the bully gets jail time. He ended up being a drug courier. The other one, went away from home because he lost in a bet (I heard he had to pay Rp.13 million).
Cliché stuff become a cliché because they happen very often.
In the end, I just wanna say, look out for our friends, younger siblings and juniors.
Give them a hand when they nearly slip off the edge.
We could be heroes.
-Bee
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