My latest, pointless "it wasn't like that when I was a kid" post....

[PurpleChez]

I am a middle school teacher. When I was in junior high and high school ('79-'84) there were, of course, oddballs among my fellow students. I myself was an oddball in several respects. There were, of course, a few kids who were maybe a little too freaky about the Who, Rush, or the Sex Pistols. (For me it was the Beatles.) There was the kid who was mental about Porsches. And, of course, guys who were obsessive about various sports teams. But what I don't recall from my own experience is a parallel to some of the groups I see where I teach today: large groups of kids (not just a mini-clique of two or three) whose entire existance revolves around...for example...skating. They skate. All of their friends skate. Their wardrobe is based on skating. Their career goals are based on skating (become an architect and build skate parks). Any free time means skating. Animosities toward others grow out of skating. They can talk for hours a day, every day, about skating. Everything is skating. And when they can't skate they're recreating skating moves with these queer little finger skateboards. And then there's fantasy gaming. And probably some other things I haven't picked up on.

Some of these are really good kids...some of my favorite students...so I'm not looking for someone to say "I agree...these kids are whack" because that's not where I'm coming from. But at no point in my own public schooling was I ever aware of such large single-focus groups of my fellow students. Now, my schools--or my perception and recollection of them--might just have been different. I don't recall them as being particularly clique-ish or overly status-conscious. (The captain of the football team and the head cheerleader had no power whatsoever over anyone else's social life.) But if this is a more recent phenomenon, where did it come from?

Does DU have any insights?