"Part of the reason children of today are acting foolishly and recklessly may be because today's young people look at violence in a completely dif- ferent way than that of a former generation. Whether or not violence in today's society should be blamed on the on-screen violence will probably always be an issue that can never be agreed upon. One thing, however, has already been agreed upon. The world's values and its sense of decency have somehow declined. Both groups have agreed that it is time to change some- thing. Whether it be content of programming or the actions of parents, something has to be done. If the problem isn't solved soon, up and coming generations will be running the world with a completely different outlook on violence, and it won't necessarily be good." Steve Yeoman, Seaman High School, Topeka, Kansas
*Other students offer evidence to support Steve's contention:
"Children have a value system of their own. They are becoming rebels against a society that does not give them a chance. One peculiar value is demonstrated by a teen-ager who prowls Manhattan's Upper East Side in search of eyes to gouge. To date, he has made known attempts on a bus driver, a journalist, Egyptian tourist, the son of former Manhattan Democratic Party Leader Edward Costikyan and others. We are facing a society where standards have been lowered and blurred. The traditional and constraining institutions of family, church and school have lost much of their authority." Jodie Lewis, Crockett High School, Austin, Texas
"Juvenile criminals don't believe they have anything to lose. These kids think that their lives are worth nothing, and they can only gain by com- mitting a violent crime. They can gain a little time on TV and in the papers, and maybe a stay in jail or prison, where they usually have friends already waiting." Sarah Mandler, Marion High School, Marion, South Dakota
"Many gang members don't want to live the life they live, but the simple fact is, they feel they have no place to turn; they don't know of any other lifestyle. Many of the gangsters are in gangs because all they know is violence. They don't go out and get jobs, because they were not taught the value of a job. Their outlook on life is totally different from others." Nicole Schepp, Barnesville High School, Barnesville, Minnesota
"The youth of America have begun looking towards gangs as ways to make drug money and to be part of a fellowship that believes it doesn't matter who is killed or hurt, only that their gang stays alive." Brenner Farr, Broken Arrow High School, Broken Arrow, Oklahoma
"Kids commit crimes for the thrill. It gets the adrenaline flowing when they are in the middle of a crime. It is like a high for them once they get going. It's like a drug; once they get the high from doing it, they keep coming back for more." Jo Haun, Kensington High School, Kensington, Kansas
"A group of California guys, known as the Spur Posse, view sex with girls as a contest. For every girl they sleep with, they obtain a point. A mother of one Spur Posse member offered the explanation that it was all just a 'testosterone thing.' Parents should not condone or excuse this kind of disgusting behavior. By justifying her son's behavior, she [the mother] is part of the problem; not the solution." Carrie Patterson, Meadow Bridge High School, Meadow Bridge, West Virginia
*Is the "testosterone thing" similar to the old justification for irresponsible behavior, "boys will be boys?" If you think so, then how would you classify a recent "prank" which took place at the end of the 1993-94 school year in Northern California?
*Male students packed 65 pounds of a powdered chemical into a concrete drinking fountain and ignited it. The resultant flames spewed 30 feet onto a crowded school yard, injuring several students.
*A gymnast from Beijing sent her 7 month-old daughter to her mother back in China in June 1994 because one of the two men accused of attacking her and her husband jumped bail. The attack was in retaliation for reporting graffiti taggers.
*The majority of Americans are still reluctant to think of spray-painting private property as a crime. On July 25, 1994 when a large group of teen-taggers surrounded a San Francisco municipal bus in broad daylight and managed to inflict damages totaling $5,000 in a matter of minutes, the media treated the episode lightly. Others believe society's tolerance of cheating and vandalism may inadvertently encourage an escalation to terrorism and killing. They are the less tolerant Americans who applauded the caning of American teenager Michael Fay by the government of Singapore in the spring of 1994. His offense was vandalism.
"Another area of youth delinquency is vandalism. I chose this because it just recently happened in our high school. Youths broke into the high school, and spray painted walls, broke glass, wrote obscene gestures on chalk boards, and simply tore up classrooms. It is suspected that this was done by teenagers who attended the school. Why anyone would want to break into their own school, or any school as far as that goes, is beyond me, but this is just another problem with our society today." Ben Tenpenny, Seaman High School, Topeka, Kansas
*Many people would like officials to crack-down on minor offenses like thoughtless pranks and cheating. Their feelings are expressed accurately in Colleen's excerpt: "Children who are not disciplined become rebellious adolescents." Colleen Hofer, James Valley Christian, Huron, South Dakota
*The hope is that by taking irresponsibility seriously, it will not develop into more serious crime:
"These types of irresponsible behavior are also present in common, everyday places, like school. One such instance was described to me by a teacher. He had a student who consistently came to him after receiving her graded test to point out an error in which he marked problems wrong that were in fact correct. After three or four times, the teacher began to suspect the student of changing her answers after getting her tests back. To see if his assumption was correct, the teacher made a photocopy of her test before giving it back to her. Sure enough, he found a mistake. This time, however, the teacher pulled out his photocopy and found that she had indeed changed her answer. The student was not embarrassed, as one might suspect. She was upset, saying that the teacher did not trust her. This may seem ironic to us, but she felt that her cheating, or getting caught cheating, was the teacher's fault." Ellen Walles, Eureka High School, Eureka, Illinois
*Shane (below) shows where tolerating cheating has led:
"The first study done in 1941 [found] that twenty-three percent of college students cheated. [A 1992] study [found that] sixty percent of college students cheated." Shane Andrus, LaCrosse High School, LaCrosse, Washington
*Every year the Harry Singer Foundation receives well over a thousand papers and every year the identical paragraph is found in several papersÒsometimes with quotation marks and a citation and sometimes without.The latter are automatically disqualified for cash awards. We urge students to pay attention to what Amy says in the next excerpt.:
"I believe that the cheating in schools and colleges has gotten extremely out of hand. It has become way too easy to slip through a class the dishonest way. One of the most common ways of cheating is plagiarism. Students often write down the words from a published book or magazine in the exact order as they were originally written without quoting the author. The teachers grading these papers often do not detect this dishonesty; therefore, not a lot is done to prevent this." Amy Nelson, Lubbock-Cooper High School, Lubbock, Texas
*Judging by the excerpt below, either we should dispatch a fact-finding group to Alaska or some students are pulling-the-wool over Tara's eyes:
"I have done a survey and my results show teens have a lot of responsib- ility when it comes to cheating. I asked if they had ever cheated on a test and many of them said they hadn't and wouldn't even if they knew they could get away with it. The majority of them said that they turn in most, if not all, of their homework." Tara F. Miller, Hoonah High School, Hoonah, Alaska
*The excerpts that follow show that it is not much of a reach from cheating on a school paper to stretching the truth on a tax-return to practicing fraud as a full-fledged criminal:
"People readily admit they cheat on their taxes. IRS figures based on statistical samplings of returns show that employees who have income taxes withheld from their paychecks contribute their due 97 to 98 percent of the time.For people who don't have income taxes withheld from their paychecks, but who aren't self-employed, the rate for truthful reports drops to 84 to 92 percent. Only 60 to 64 percent of self-employed people report truth- fully. These people are irresponsible in not obeying the laws and cheating." Rebecca M. Watkins, Phoenix High School, Phoenix, Oregon
"There was a man hauling gas for a gas company and after he would make all of his deliveries daily he would take whatever extra gas he had left from his delivery truck and put it in his own tank at his house. That is simply theft; there is nothing else really to say." Drew Johnson, Salem High School, Salem, Missouri
"A friend of the family had part of the kitchen in their house burn down. The insurance claim was made for a sizable amount of money for property which they did not own. They received what they asked for the damaged goods. They replaced the kitchen, which is much nicer than it was before the fire plus there was enough money to build a large addition to the house. This type of behavior is very profitable, but not very ethical." Michele Paulick, Garnet Valley High School, Glen Mills, Pennsylvania
"There are many examples of irresponsible behavior in our society. One example is people that fake injuries at their workplace, then take workman's compensation as a supplement because they can't work. This dishonest behavior costs all of us who pay the insurance premiums a lot of money." Lee Austin, Centerville High Sc