Inside the Mind of a Teenager
- Wade
"Could I have your attention please? I have a sad announcement to make."
Nothing good ever comes after that.
"The space shuttle Columbia disintegrated while landing today. All seven astronauts aboard are dead. As Americans, let's stand and observe a moment of silence."
As I stood up, my mind reeled. Columbia? I didn't know it launched, much less that it was supposed to land. How awful for their families. Could it really be seventeen years ago that the Challenger exploded? I hope their fam-
"Thank you."
The auditorium of Century High School in Rochester, MN exploded in conversation as everyone sat. My wife, a coach of the Lakeville High School speech team, attends Saturday tournaments like this for many weeks in the winter. I usually attend, part being-the-good-husband and part this-is-actually-interesting. That's why I found myself awash in a sea of teenagers, as students and coaches alike waited for the award ceremony to being.
Then this announcement. Remembering my amazement and sadness at the first shuttle disaster in 1986, how would these kids react? What words would they use to comfort each other? Here's what I heard...
"I totally hate moments of silence. They just make me want to laugh and I know if I start laughing everyone will laugh."
"This tournament's award ceremony is sooo slow."
"Who do you think will go to the Eagan tournament?"
And that's about it. At first I was upset-- I couldn't stop thinking about how the astronaut's families must have felt when learning their loved ones, fifteen minutes from earth, had perished-- and these kids act like it didn't mean anything? How could they be so insensitive? Yet as I thought about it over the next day, it made more sense.
First, these are high schoolers. Just because I, at their age, would've run out of the auditorium to watch CNN doesn't make them not normal. I had a partialness to civics and a weight problem, both of which led me to be a fan of watching news as it happens. If these students had been at home with their families instead of surrounded by hundreds of their peers, maybe their reaction would have been more somber.
Second, disintegrated? How boring is that? There weren't any missiles or explosions or anything? No blood? My (belabored) point here is that disintegrations, explosions, and (sadly) death aren't as real to teenagers. (pause while I get my William Bennett-sponsored, conservative-issued soapbox out.) Whether on T.V., in movies, or on their PS2, teenagers see stuff like this all the time. I'm guessing it's difficult to be as affected when it happens for real.
Finally, after 9/11, what's seven people? Most of these kids saw the towers fall, taking nearly 3,000 lives as they went. In comparison, this was no big deal at all. Their sense of perspective has been so skewed by September 11th that what used to be an American tragedy is little more than a sidebar in their minds. Maybe that's true for the rest of us too.
All I can do is sigh, say a prayer for the families, and express my sadness that my generation now has yet another "Where were you when you heard..." moment.
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