I witnessed a student nearly run over today. Fortunately, the driver ahead of me was alert, and traffic surrounding the school at the last bell is slow in any case, but it was still a narrow thing: some kids were horsing around, and one got pushed out into the street. Once the driver had a second to collect his wits, he honked, and the kid who nearly got hit, grinning, pointed at his pushing friend, calling “He did it!†Which was entirely beside the point, as well as disingenuous.
The event serves as another reminder that, with a few exceptions, high school students are not adults. They’re almost adults, and they can behave like adults for short periods, and we expect them to behave like adults all the time, and they yearn to be treated with the dignity of adults, but they really aren’t adults yet. A blithe disregard for danger and, when caught at it, a reflexive effort to deflect punishment to someone else rather than address the problem as a problem both speak of maturity yet to develop.
And yes, I realize that some people never develop a healthy sense of responsibility. Adulthood isn’t merely a matter of age. Teenagers, at least, have an excuse. The basic fact remains: however much we might like to treat them like adults, and however much they might want to be treated like adults—or think that they do—they aren’t adults yet. And we, their handlers and teachers and hopefully role models, need to keep that perpetually in mind.
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