EDUCATION POSITION OR POL ICY ADOLESCENT SURVIVAL IN THE SUBURBAN HIGH SCHOOL

This paper discusses the American educational system as a quiet and nondeliberate destroyer of the adolescent's spirit in terms of stifling the development of cognitive, social, cultural, and intellectual growth. This phenomenon has been produced by the content, structure, and teaching methodology used in schools, beginning with fourth grade and continuing throughout junior and senior high schools, and into undergraduate university programs. Problem areas highlighted are: (1) a static academic curriculum with little relevance to the real world, (2) a rigid and inflexible policy of school operation based on a model of managerial efficiency, and f3) an attitude of distrust and hostility toward the student body. The paper concludes that if the student is not helped to become aware of himself as an individual, through education, the educational apparatus is merely grooming slaves and conditioning them to accept whatever conditions of life happen to come their way. (CS