Sometimes I think adults have a warped perspective of what high school kids really are. They hear stories on the news about gangs, murders, drugs, teenagers doing stupid stuff, and they assume all teenagers are bad people who are up to no good. I can assure you that is not true--I have many, many students who are conscientious, hard workers, use common sense, kind, friendly, and many other things, and it frustrates me when adults overlook those qualities and see the stereotypical bad seed teenager. Oh, I have that kind too, but they are few and far between.
For example--yesterday we had a problem with one of our advertisers for the newspaper I advise. As is customary, two students went to see the owner of a local hair salon regarding the issue, which was a small problem but escalated into a bigger deal. She was very rude to them, yelling at them in front of her own customers, saying THEY were unprofessional, being downright hateful to them, accusing them of things she had done herself. The two girls, two of the best on my staff, came back upset. A little while later I called the owner of the salon, to straighten out a few things, and she was as nice as can be to me. I called her out for being mean to the girls, and she said, "well, they're just high school girls; they'll get over it." As if that excuses her behavior.
What if we all used that excuse? We could be rude to the clerk at the grocery store--"Oh, she's just a clerk; " Or the mailman--"oh, he just delivers the mail, he doesn't matter." Or the waitress--"oh, she's just a waitress, I don't need to leave her a tip." Just because they are younger doesn't warrent mistreatment.
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