TRASHING TEENS

Psychologist Robert Epstein argues in a provocative book, "The Case Against Adolescence," that teens are far more competent than we assume, and most of their problems stem from restrictions placed on them.
by: Estroff Morano

Psychologist Robert Epstein spoke to Psychology Today's Hara Estroff Marano about the legal and emotional constraints on American youth.

HEM: Why do you believe that adolescence is an artificial extension of childhood?

RE: In every mammalian species, immediately upon reaching puberty, animals function as adults, often having offspring. We call our offspring "children" well past puberty. The trend started a hundred years ago and now extends childhood well into the 20s. The age at which Americans reach adulthood is increasing—30 is the new 20—and most Americans now believe a person isn't an adult until age 26.

The whole culture collaborates in artificially extending childhood, primarily through the school system and restrictions on labor. The two systems evolved together in the late 19th-century; the advocates of compulsory-education laws also pushed for child-labor laws, restricting the ways young people could work, in part to protect them from the abuses of the new factories. The juvenile justice system came into being at the same time. All of these systems isolate teens from adults, often in problematic ways.

Our current education system was created in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and was modeled after the new factories of the industrial revolution. Public schools, set up to supply the factories with a skilled labor force, crammed education into a relatively small number of years. We have tried to pack more and more in while extending schooling up to age 24 or 25, for some segments of the population. In general, such an approach still reflects factory thinking—get your education now and get it efficiently, in classrooms in lockstep fashion. Unfortunately, most people learn in those classrooms to hate education for the rest of their lives.

The factory system doesn't work in the modern world, because two years after graduation, whatever you learned is out of date. We need education spread over a lifetime, not jammed into the early years—except for such basics as reading, writing, and perhaps citizenship. Past puberty, education needs to be combined in interesting and creative ways with work. The factory school system no longer makes sense.

What are some likely consequences of extending one's childhood?

Imagine what it would feel like—or think back to what it felt like—when your body and mind are telling you you're an adult while the adults around you keep insisting you're a child. This infantilization makes many young people angry or depressed, with their distress carrying over into their families and contributing to our high divorce rate. It's hard to keep a marriage together when there is constant conflict with teens.

We have completely isolated young people from adults and created a peer culture. We stick them in school and keep them from working in any meaningful way, and if they do something wrong we put them in a pen with other "children." In most nonindustrialized societies, young people are integrated into adult society as soon as they are capable, and there is no sign of teen turmoil. Many cultures do not even have a term for adolescence. But we not only created this stage of life: We declared it inevitable. In 1904, American psychologist G. Stanley Hall said it was programmed by evolution. He was wrong.

How is adolescent behavior shaped by societal strictures?

One effect is the creation of a new segment of society just waiting to consume, especially if given money to spend. There are now massive industries—music, clothing, makeup—that revolve around this artificial segment of society and keep it going, with teens spending upward of $200 billion a year almost entirely on trivia.

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image: dodge.stanford.edu/.../wallenberg_trashcan1.html

HOMELESS NATION . ORG

The Homeless Nation is Canada's only website created by and for Homeless Canadians. Through a national network of outreach workers, The Homeless Nation Project is dedicated to providing the tools for homeless Canadians to share their stories, unique philosophies and points of view with other Canadians. As well, this site provides an opportunity for the general public to interact and learn more about Canada's homeless population.

Homelessnation.org is produced through a non-profit Canadian organization, Homeless Street Archive. It was formed in 2002 in Montreal by filmmaker Daniel Cross, who had just finished completing the documentary films "The Street: A Film With The Homeless" and "SPIT: Squeegee Punks In Traffic". Having met hundreds of people from the street community across the country, Daniel searched for a way to present as many people's experience as possible, without the need for the editing process that often left left stories on the cutting room floor. It became clear that the web provided a direction for a more participatory and inclusive approach to media.

With a beta release in 2005, and this official release in April 2006, the Homeless Nation is now a national project, with outreach teams in Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto. These teams work in shelters, day centers, and on the streets, actively engaging the street community to share their stories and participate on the site. Each user creates their own unique web page and email address. Outreach teams also record location-specifc videoblogs with interested members, posting these on the site immediately.

above picture - Daniel Cross

STEPS OFF the STREET

A Hit of Coke and a Dose of Urban Reality

by Jeff Kubik (ffwd)

Somewhere in the realm of Plato’s ideal forms, nestled in the “fringe” subsection, there is an economical one-hander with scatological humour and sacrilegious zings on Christianity, plastered with the adoring stars of 1,000 divine critics. If this play existed, its audiences would laugh themselves hoarse. It would make a million, billion dollars.
Then there’s David Trimble. One of the most recognizable ducks in the cozy Calgary pond, the prolific character actor is preparing to mount a production with Ground Zero Theatre that flies in the face of traditional fringe fare. Simply, Urban Reality is a bit of a downer.
As its title suggests, Urban Reality sees the first-time playwright return to some of the city’s darker recesses, the kind seen in Trimble’s award-winning solo fringe run of Eric Bogosian’s Drinking in America in 2006. A two-hander featuring Trimble and Lena M. Davis, Urban Reality begins as a young drug addict named Sandy enters a tattered apartment, ready to buy and shoot cocaine. With her newfound dealer, Jimmy, seeming to play the voice of reason to Sandy’s desperation with offers of cold Kraft dinner and gentle words of advice (in addition to the cocaine), the scene soon twists into a cycle of dependence and abuse whose graphic climax offers some small hope of redemption at the cost of shocking brutality.
“It’s hard and terrifying,” says Trimble of creating and assuming the role of a bottom-feeding exploiter. “(The play) goes to the darkest place you can go, so it’s hard. You have to commit to it. The piece is so visceral, you have to play it for real. But we’ll get around it.”
The play is based on the experiences of Trimble’s wife, a former social worker whose ultimately tragic work with an underage prostitute led to her leaving the profession. Trimble is suitably upfront about the play’s message. In addition to the play’s clear social content, one dollar from every ticket will go to Woods Homes’ EXIT Community Outreach Program that helps at-risk teenagers living on the streets.
It’s engaging theatre of the kind that Trimble prefers himself, even if it doesn’t quite fit the mould of the traditional, escapist fringe show. “For me, in my taste, I like seeing visceral theatre, dark comedy,” he says. “I love satire, seeing past (the play), through it. For me, what keeps me coming back is that I get it, and I like it, and it serves more than just pure escapism, even though there is a place for that.
“Theatre is so visceral,” he adds. “To see it live might compel someone to make a difference, or look at (the disadvantaged) differently.”
For better or worse, though, any artistic decision always comes with commercial costs. Somewhere in the hazy world of ideal forms, the perfect fringe show is still waiting for its box office-bursting revenues, ready to dispense escapism and absurdity to an eager fringe-going public. Here in the physical world, however, there’s another ideal at stake. For Trimble, the play’s commercial viability doesn’t enter into the equation.
“It doesn’t diminish what I honestly believe is the necessity of the piece,” he says. “If you change one person’s perspective, that’s more important than revenue at the door.”

City of Origin: Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Playwright: David Trimble
Director: Lester Fong
Cast: David Trimble, Leda M. Davies

At MOT: Aug. 10, 7:30 p.m. Aug. 11, 5 p.m. Aug. 12, 1:30 p.m. Aug. 16, 10:30 p.m.
Aug. 18, 6:30 p.m.

Calgary Fringe Festival

OH Canada!

TORONTO, July 8 (Reuters) - Adolescents and young families are
being hit hardest by the growing rate of homelessness in Canada,

according to ``The Progress of Nations'' annual report by the United Nations
Children's Fund (UNICEF), which was released on Wednesday.
Young people between the ages of 10 and 19 total 4.5 million and
comprise 13.5 percent of Canada's population.
The report estimated Canada has roughly 200,000 homeless people, with
between 5,000 and 12,000 in Toronto, the nation's largest city.
By comparison, the report estimated that there are some three million
homeless people in the 15 member countries of the European Union and
about 750,000 homeless in the United States.
There are no official statistics for the homeless in Canada.
``We have very little in terms of data in Canada about homelessness.
We need more data,'' Dawn Walker, executive director of the Canadian
Institute for Child Health told Reuters. ``Right now we're working on
anecdotal information.''
In Toronto, 6,500 people stayed in emergency shelters on a typical
night in late 1997 -- a jump of two thirds in a single year, the
UNICEF report.

``Canada's homeless used to be older men who often had alcohol and
drugs problems,'' said Walker. ``What's happening now is that that
trend is changing and we're getting more and more young people, more
people with young families.''
Welfare cuts by Canada's federal and provincial governments and the
end of rent control in major cities have made it increasingly tough
for the poor to get affordable housing and to qualify for programmes
that might keep them off the street.
``There was no way out,'' Diane Marlow, Minister for International
Cooperation and Minister Responsible for la Francophonie, said at a
UNICEF's press conference in Toronto. ``We had a huge deficit, and we
dealt with that. I think we have to keep working with what we have.''
Marleau also urged all levels of government to work toward eradicating
Canada's homeless problem.
Canada, the United States, Britain and Australia are identified in the
UNICEF report as countries engaged in what it called the
``demonization of caring government,'' because of declining public
investment in social housing and the waning involvement of local
authorities and nonprofit organizations in trying to solve the
homeless problem.
``We've always had people on the street but it used to be kids who did
it in the spring and summer months and it was an interim part of their
lives,'' observed Walker. ``What we're now seeing are young people who
are on the street for many many years. It's becoming much more their
way of life.''
According to the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, every
child has the right to ``a standard of living adequate for the child's
physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development.''

By definition, homelessness denies all these rights. 

Canada kicking Its Way Up The Rankings

Canada will be kicking its way up the rankings this year at the Homeless World Cup in Copenhagen. The competition, skill, play and spirit on the pitch at this year’s tryouts were the best Canada has ever seen. The Canadian National Homeless Street Soccer tryouts were held this past weekend in Toronto with three cities, Toronto, Calgary and Montreal sponsoring teams to come to the tournament. The City of Toronto John Innes Recreation Centre was host to the event where the Toronto homeless shelter soccer league foundation was set two years ago. Toronto lead the way with two teams, East and West, and the return of Mr. Hollywood – Elliot Clow - last years Homeless World Cup MVP goalkeeper - and Devon “I’m everywhere and solid” Snow as well as Hadi Mounshed. Toronto once again backed up their winning record with Toronto West taking the tournament. Calgary’s second year in the national tournament fielded a rock-solid team with returning former player, now coach Adam Vernon, coming to play. The men from the Calgary Drop In did their city proud with their strong defensive play. While it was the first year for the Montreal squad from the Old Brewery Mission the team came with vigor and verve. Montreal and their coaches fought strong and united and spirited their way to overall second place in the tournament. Selections for the Copenhagen bound Canadian National Team were made from all cities and the National Team will no doubt be a force to be reckoned with. The street soccer project and the formation of the National Team each year is a joint partnership between Street Soccer Canada and the City of Toronto’s John Innes recreation Centre.

Homeless World Cup

Homelessness 'chronic" in Canada

Canada's homeless population is somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 people, while another 1.7 million residents struggle with "housing affordability issues," says an analysis of the latest research on shelter.

In a report released Tuesday (June 26, 2007) from the Calgary-based Sheldon Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership, journalist and author Gordon Laird argues homelessness is now chronic and is quickly becoming one of the country's defining social issues. He makes a case for a national housing strategy and a more robust income security program.

Citing statistics from a wide range of organizations, Laird says poverty is the leading cause of homelessness in Canada, not substance abuse or mental illness. "Roughly half of all Canadians live in fear of poverty, and 49 per cent polled believe they might be poverty stricken if they missed one or two paycheques," he writes.

Laird is a media fellow with the foundation, which works to influence ethical actions in politics, business, government and the community.

In his report, Laird writes that street counts of homeless people have increased dramatically — "Calgary's homeless population grew 740 per cent between 1994 and 2006."

He cites government numbers showing a cost of up to $6 billion a year to service a "core" homeless population of 150,000. That cost includes health care, criminal justice, social services and emergency shelter costs.

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