School Days

True story.

A few days ago, I was traveling on Cedar Road when I saw a group of kids rough-housing on the sidewalk. They were tussling along the tree lawn, seemingly unphased by how closely they were drifting into the street.  As they shoved and pushed each other, smiles plastered across their faces, they danced closer and closer to the intersection. Finally a shove went too far and a young lady fell to her seat. The smile on her face disappeared. She moved to jump up, unsure of whether fight or flight was the appropriate response.

The boy who shoved her was still giggling and headed back for a second go-round.  The young lady didn’t look so happy.

I pulled my vehicle to the far side of the street and headed over to the group. They were just playing around but I would’ve hated to see someone hurt as a result of silly kid stuff. So I asked the group to control their behavior and tone down the play.  Several of the young men apologized and said they understood. They returned to their walk but not before someone in the crowd yelled , “Get your fat behind in your truck and go home”. To her credit, she used no curse words.

Before leaving the intersection, I was able to speak with the young lady to ask her motivation for the taunt. After a brief conversation, the curt situation was diffused and she offered her name and a handshake. I imagined that to her, I looked like a busybody. I guess she also felt that because I was an adult, she had to take the adversarial role. Adults don’t understand kids. That assumption can be accepted as having some truth to it, even before the well-documented 1988 Fresh Prince (Will Smith) hit, “Parents Just Don’t Understand.”

One of the upsides to living in Cleveland Heights is benefiting from its commitment to its children. During a time when many city and school board budgets are making up their deficits by plowing away extra curricular, after-school and recreational dollars, this city is still maintaining and pursuing opportunities for its youth.  Whether through its consideration of 21st century learning recommendations by the district’s facilities committees or through support of Go Public!’s book drive, Cleveland Heights makes a concerted effort to address the well-being of its students.

But there are some kids at some moments that make it, shall we say, difficult, to be encouraging and supportive. When I’ve spoken to some residents who reflect on the yesteryears of Heights,  the law of diminishing returns  is alive and well in these conversations. “Things aren’t like they used to be,” or “Kids aren’t the same,” is often offered as reality. But I wonder if it’s an imagined state of reality to believe that the attitudes of children are more “robust” than once upon a time.

Coincidentally, two weeks prior to the intersection incident, I met two wonderful women I’ll refer to as Linda and Sonya at Phoenix Coffeehouse. We were making each other’s acquaintance when Linda happened to mention that she was a former student at Wiley Middle School. Back during her time, Wiley was situated on a plot of land that was surrounded by much of nothing. Later, much of nothing became a golf course. The school didn’t have a working cafeteria so each homeroom was responsible for selling lunch. Her homeroom sold French fries.

She talked of her love for her favorite teacher whom she still admires and recalls fondly even in his ninety-three years of age.  She spoke of how wonderfully a time it was to be a young child. Her days were spent innocently playing and growing up. She stated that there wasn’t the unrest and selfishness that goes on today.

Then Linda mentioned that as children, she and her friends played a game called “nazi”, with some children imitating the German army in a rudimentary fashion that sounded like the game of tag. As children they had very limited knowledge of what the Nazis were perpetuating. Looking back, she assessed that there was little possibility that she or her playmates could have fully understood the gravity of their game. Certainly they never desired to mimic the sting of reality upon their classmates.

Simply put, Linda and her friends didn’t know any better.  Not knowing any better, in my humble opinion, is the essence of childhood.

I suppose childhood could be described in more florid terms. Childhood is often described as a time of wonder and imagination. Innocence. But at the end of the day all these terms hold true because our children live in a world (a mindset) that does not allow consideration for much else other than what they would like to be. So their dreams are more lofty. Goals are less centered in reality. And thought processes are more self-centered, for a moment, because they are nurtured in a vacuum that is dismantled in the adult world.

In the adult world, we are expected to know better. Part of that responsibility seems like it should include the understanding that children are not equipped to be as sophisticated and intelligent as adults. Even when they have access to technology and the best educational resources, the mark of maturity in a child is one that is garnished through experience.  To expect that technological advances alone would be enough to propel adolescent growth and development beyond our own aggregate levels would mean the effects of life experience, guidance, modeling and trial and error have become devoid of purpose.

True, the parameters of an adult world and its information are more easily penetrable in this day and age. Try as we might, sources are abundant for providing access to any and everything a person (or child) may want to know. Not only that, but the harsh realities of this economic climate, even in Cleveland Heights, also unwittingly removes the thinning mask of innocence. I’m sure that being restricted to the “child vacuum” afforded many of us, including myself, the opportunity to benefit from an elongated time of innocence. But to believe that we, as children, were any less rambunctious, any more intelligent, any more willing to complete chores, any less noisy, any more willing to break bread with adults or any less fond of food fights, stink bombs and skip days – it causes one to ponder, who’s really dreaming?

I’d really like to hear your thoughts on this subject. Were kids truly better behaved “in the good ole days”?