Freaks, Geeks, and Cool Kids

Download or read book Freaks, Geeks, and Cool Kids written by Murray Milner and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-18 with total page 483 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Freaks, Geeks, and Cool Kids argues that the teenage behaviors that annoy adults do not arise from "hormones," bad parenting, poor teaching, or "the media," but from adolescents' lack of power over the central features of their lives: they must attend school; they have no control over the curriculum; they can't choose who their classmates are. What teenagers do have is the power to create status systems and symbols that not only exasperate adults, but also impede learning and maturing. Ironically, parents, educators, and businesses are inadvertently major contributors to these outcomes.