Then...and now
By many measures — though not in hair size — teens today are moving up
Submitted photos / The South County Spotlight
Two decades apart — Although they attended Scappoose High School in different decades, Michelle Mares’ (left) and Samantha King’s (right) stories about life in the county are very similar.
Michelle Mares attended Scappoose High School twenty years ago. Samantha King attends the school right now. Still, despite the time gap, their stories are remarkably similar.
Like Mares (now Mares-Taylor), King gets A’s and B’s and the occasional C. She also eschews cliques and makes friends easily like her predecessor. Both love singing and they have a fondness for lots of extra-curricular activities. With many family members living in the area, Mares never got into much trouble and neither does King.
But while these two girls do have a lot in common, the generations they come from — “Generation X” and the “Millennium” generation, respectively — are quite different.
The good news is that, by the numbers, those differences mean that kids these days better off than they were 20 years ago (see statistics after jump).
Suicide rates have dropped. So have pregnancy and abortion rates. They’re not drinking, smoking and using drugs as much as they did. And as dropout rates have decreased, testing scores have steadily climbed.
And the differences between the generations go beyond the statistical improvements.
Millennials vs. Gen X
Millennials are hyper-connected kids who Scappoose School District Superintendent Paul Peterson refers to as information grazers. They’re kids who don’t necessarily know everything, but know where to find the information they need. And that’s fine with him.
“The jobs of the future are going to require the creative capacities of the mind,” he said. “You don’t design a classroom for the old stand-and-deliver model. We design it for flexibility to do activities. To get kids out of their seats and learning.”
Twenty years ago as a senior, Mares, who still lives in town today, studied from textbooks and composed her reports on an electric typewriter. She took extra math courses as electives. King, a sophomore, is more mission-oriented and said she likes to do her best in school because she views her good grades as an acknowledgment from her teachers that she’s working hard.
King seems to fits the mold of a Millennial, which Neil Howe and William Strauss describe in their book, “Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation.”
The authors identified seven traits that they say are the exclusive domain of the Millennium generation. The Millennials, they assert, are taught they are special, are sheltered, and tend to be confident, team-oriented, conventional, pressured and achieving.
Style and culture
On a recent afternoon, King was hanging out with fellow choirmates, listening as her brother Taylor tuned his iPod to the “Family Guy” take of MC Hammer’s 1990 hit, “U Can’t Touch This.”
King was wearing a military-style cotton jacket and the blond hair she insists on straightening fell over her shoulders. She said she doesn’t care what people think, but wavy hair is definitely out for this teenager.
Twenty years ago, Mares said, the flat hair and messy ponytails you see around SHS now would have been unthinkable. It’s one area where Mares said that teens today aren’t overachieving.
“They don’t worry about appearance the way we did,” said Mares, who works as a hairdresser. “We were done to a ‘T’.”
In this age, multimedia is everywhere. During classbreaks, many SHS teenagers grip cell phones and give each other electronic updates on their daily lives.
“Kids publish constantly via the Internet,” Peterson said.
Trouble focusing
But the constant flow of information does have its downsides.
King who describes herself as an outgoing, hardworking perfectionist, said she sometimes struggles with focus.
“I get distracted easily, which is not always a good thing,” she said.
But as the Millenials move towards their future, and as Peterson keeps the needs of what he refers to as the “conceptual generation” front and center, he also believes strongly in their abilities.
“You know what?” he said. “I’m feeling pretty good about the future.”
How we’ve changed in Oregon
• Dropout rates
1991-92: 5.7 percent
2007-08: 3.7 percent
• Average SAT scores
1993: 517/verbal, 515/math
2008: 523/verbal, 527/math
• Students involved in sports
1991: 65 percent boys, 47 girls
2006: 59 percent boys, 50 girls
• Seniors who volunteer at least once a month
1991: 23.7 percent
2006: 33.2 percent
•Seniors who are drug free
1991: 40 percent
2006: 48.1 percent
(Source: State statistics)