Teenagers today are spending more and more money on the extravagance of prom. The article by Jeffery Shaffer claims that high school proms have become an “exercise in the celebration of extravagance and indulgence.” In this article negative ideas and, inappropriate messages are conveyed to teens. Many of the ideas proposed in this article are eccentric, turning school tradition into competition of unlimited spending.
Although the price for prom according to Shaffer has reached “more than $1,200 per couple” and assumes “it’s the same or higher”, the price for prom in present years is beginning to near $2,000 a couple. Even with most high school students believing that it is worth it because of the great time they will have and the memories. From personal experience this year my friends as well as I are spending almost $700 on the entire prom event, for just our self’s. This includes everything from dress, shoes, to limo and post prom events. The average high school student does receive financial help from their parent, opposed to in 1925-26 when “girls were not allowed to borrow money from the office”. Showing the negative side of the expense for prom to teens could discourage them from going and have a great last high school experience. Causing them to later regret in life, such as three of my best friends who decided not to go to their prom last year but instead go to Six Flags. By reading this article teens might decide not to go to their prom thinking they won’t regret it, when most of them will after sitting home while everyone is out.
Many people such as Jeffery as well as myself that have “never been very interested in the party scene” can still have a great time at something that would be filled with such great memories. If teens read something like this they might say to themselves ‘I fit into that category’ and intern miss out on a fun filled night. Prom to most high school students is just an all night event of hanging out with friends and dancing, with an expensive price tag. If teens that feel they fit into a category such as this they should look at it as a night of just hanging out with friends. If they do that such as I did they won’t miss out on their last high school experience, and won’t have any regrets.
David Denby thoroughly explains the distinction between the reality of high school life to what is portrayed in movies in the article, “High-School Confidential: Notes on Teen Movies.” He argues that many of these movies are extremely predictable and all have the same story line. Denby gives numerous examples of the cliché teen movie, which entails the skinny, blonde popular girl and her jock boyfriend who, let’s face it, has his shining moments in life, in high school. Denby’s main objective throughout this article is to distinguish whether these films reflect reality, or just what we imagine to be reality. He also touches on the other side of the social spectrum which usually consists of a quiet, female outsider who is known to be smart and
The trivialization of high school in the present educational organization for teens has been posited in the public; however, it is one vital issue that is being debated.
This past month I made my last visit to the popular teenage/college student retail store Abercrombie and Fitch. Finishing up some back to school shopping, I was on a quest for jeans, and I knew the place to get them. My last two favorite pairs were from Abercrombie and Fitch, and I was planning on buying the same kind once again. Happy and relieved that I would not spend the afternoon ransacking the mall for one pair of jeans, I entered the store to the pulsating beat of techno dance music. In front of me was the teenage Mecca of what is truly hip -- the first thing I noticed were the life-size pictured that covered the walls -- half-clad muscular and glistening young men, frolicking around with pouty faced but beautiful young women who were wearing either size 2 short shorts with bikini tops or 3 layered sweaters. The tables were covered with overpriced shorts, shirts, and sweaters, strewn about by desperate customers searching for the perfect outfit. The sales people who roamed the floors were definitions of cool themselves -- ranging from age 16-22, they modeled their employee discounts in a haughty way which encouraged the customers to strive for their ultra-hip look. And strive the customers did. What was the most noticeable upon entering the store (besides the blaringly loud music which made me wonder if I was at a clothing store or a dance club) were the herds of desperate young men and women, who seemed to range from age 12-25, strutting around the store and searching for anything that had the name A&F on it. I can only imaging how many nights of baby-sitting it would take some of these eager teenagers to buy one sweater. The young custome...
The Plastics were the most popular girls in school, but also the messiest and most insecure. Downing others to make themselves feel better was what The Plastics lived for. It took for chaos, confusion, and betrayal for them to get to the gist of who they really are as individuals. The adolescence period in one’s life is a very tough and exciting time. A teen is constantly going through changes daily; physically, mentally and emotionally.
High school is one of those milestones in an individual’s life that will be remembered for a long time to come. Whether one’s experiences are positive and allow him to find his purpose in life or whether they are so terrible that his view of education is tainted forever, what happens in high school affects how one’s future will turn out. Leon Botstein, author of “Let Teenagers Try Adulthood,” states that the traditional high school system should be abolished because it is not benefitting teenagers. He states that cliques of popularity and athleticism and teachers who care more about money than education stand in the way of proper learning for teenagers. Botstein further argues that school stifles students creativity and that they really do not want to be in school. His argument that the traditional high school setting should be abolished is somewhat justified on the fact that cliques make schooling experiences difficult; however, his statement that children’s creativity is stifled, they are bored in high school, and that they are ready to be adults at a young age is invalid.
Although the teens of the fabulous fifties have come and gone, the teens of today have stepped up to the plate to instill their own fashion trends, music, slang and history. The teens of the twenty-first are said to "be the future", although the future may not look too bright in some elders eyes. In contraire, that is what may have been thought to be said of the teens of the fifties. With their endless rock and roll and rebellion the teens of the fifties are very much different but very much the same of the teens in the twenty-first century. It is amazing to see what the world has become, from bobby socks and roadsters to mini skirts and vipers.
In defiance of some of the controversial arguments that were presented in the film “The Merchants of Cool”, one in some ways should be affected by the actual realization that this level of disinformation could be present within our society. Tv executives, movie producers, record producers and many others confine teens today with the most contradictory marketing pitches that causes teens to look towards the media to provide them with a ready-made identity of what is considered to be “cool”. Instead of empowering young individuals, the continual focus of their desires leaves them off course
In other industrialized nations, teenage turmoil was a fraction of that seen in the U.S. The author proposed that turmoil was the result of infantilizing- a phenomenon largely attributed to American culture. When treated like adults, teens are capable of rising to the...
Thousands of dollars for college tuition; thousands of dollars for textbooks and materials, the cost just keeps building up! Students going through high school right now do not have the experience of having to actually pay for school. Often enough, colleges and universities require students to pay hefty prices to attend their schools and leads the hole in our pockets to become deeper and deeper. To change this problem, public colleges and universities should not require tuitions and school materials to be fiscal problems for students. With this, students would not worry about not going to college just because they could not afford it.
Bauman, Lawrence. The Ten Most Troublesome Teen-age Problems and How to Solve Them. New York: Citadel Press, 1997.
When we were a teens we used to try new and different things in order to impress our friends and be like the others in the crowd. Teens today are doing the same thing we use to do, but they have added some things to the list that they are doing. Sometimes as parents we tend to forget what things we did when we were a teenager because if we think back we probably did some crazy things, and made crazy choices that our parents did not like. All the things that we did, and kids do now are disturbing beha...
senior prom I decided to go. It was after all my last year in high school and I at least
For most people their graduation day is one of the best days of their lives. No more high school, and for some it means that they are now able to move out on their own and embark on the independent journey of college. In my case my graduation day started out to be a great day but turned out to be one of the worst. It is almost as if I wish I never had a ceremony. If there wasn't graduation ceremony there wouldn't have been an accident.
The teenage years are a time when adolescents try out various personas, often trying out different styles of fashion. Adversaries argue that uniforms suppress an individual’s freedom of expression. However, the clothes that people wear, or can afford to wear, often classify the group by which they are acknowledged. As a result, many teens are outcast due to the fact that they cannot afford the latest trends in clothing. This rejection can lead to a number of problems for the outcast teen: depression, inability to focus on schoolwork, or just a general feeling of inferiority. School uniforms put everyone on the same level. According to Karin Polacheck (1995), “Uniforms help to create balanced diversity by alleviating racial and cultural tensions and encouraging values of tolerance and civility.” School Uniforms permit students to relate with one another without experiencing the socioeconomic barrier that non-uniform schools generate. More importantly, students are not criticized on how much they spent on clothes or how fashionable they look, but rather for their talents and their
In former times teenagers find themselves expressing who they truly are by methods society sees as rebellion or protest. The beginning of this new era of rebellion began in the 1920’s with the United States reaching their industrialized peak. This rebellion was most found in the women. Women began to see and explore new fashion and styles rather than sticking to their mother’s old school ways of dressing. Womens hem line in dresses started to become shorter and shorter inventing the modernized skirt. Society found this absurd and schools began to fill with this new idea of fashion. Moving forward into more modern years, fashion was seen everywhere throughout the United States and mainly in public schools. Students began to experiment with their limited choices of appare...