To the world at large

Hello, I am a secondary School student currently studying for my GCSE’s. I have a complaint (if you hadn’t already guessed) and it is concerning both teenagers and the complaints addressed against them. To start off with, I would just like to say that there are many things wrong with young people today and that they do need to be addressed.

For instance, only yesterday a girl in my drama class asked me what Islam is. That was one of the most disheartening moments I have ever experienced. I’d like to add that her previous lesson had been R.E. I, after a long and drawn out sigh replied that it was like Christianity. At this point, the girl then proceeded to ask me what Christianity was.

While in science, the boy sitting next to me wondered if Islam was a country and finally, a girl in my geography class claimed that there were four countries in Britain; England, Scotland, Wales and…Liverpool. These three examples are proof of just how small a bubble children and teenagers live in today.

I also understand that many children have learning difficulties but I know for a fact that none of these previous three did. It makes me sad to think of the apathy of young children today, of the gaping hole in their knowledge that could so easily be filled with a thousand interesting things. And that is why I can understand exactly why the seemingly endless numbers of complaints about teenagers on this website have been written.

And on that subject, the first letter I read was about slang. I do not deny the fact that slang is widely used but would the way we speak English now not be considered slang to Shakespeare? Languages, just like everything else, change. Nothing can stand still forever and nor can language. I do not like slang, I do not speak slang, but at the same time, I do not think it is a mockery of the English language but rather an evolution, a language to suit the world we live in today.

The second letter I read was about the apathy of children today, about their ‘can’t be bovered’ attitude to life and the world around them and this point is the main reason I chose to write this letter. It is a fact of life today that teenagers are lambasted in almost every form of media, and many people have come to the view that we are all hoodie wearing thugs who don’t care about school or friends.

That is not the case. Is this letter not proof of the fact that some of us can be ‘bovered’ that some of us do care about life, about grades and about friends. It makes me sad to think that we are all tarred with the same brush because there are so many hardworking, friendly, literate and good teenagers out there and although I do not deny the existence of hoodie wearing thugs, why is it that the world seems to deny the existence of literate, hardworking and on the whole friendly teenagers?