16 years old
FE Sunday, April 2nd, 2006
What the Edumonolith does with vulnerable teenagers isn’t working. Hoodies rule.
It is a case of your damned if you do and your damned if you don’t. 14 year olds who are sent to FE colleges in an attempt to prevent them picking up bad habits from peers is ignoring why kids misbehave in the first place i.e. they want to or they can’t express their anger/frustration any other way. If you said kids to a special school that again misses the point, too. Free counselling for all hoodies, we reckon. Listen to them and see why they rebel. Perhaps it is the fact that the streetwise ones can’t seem to see why they are meant to sit exams and sit and listen to an older person talking all day when that doesn’t bear any resemblance to the real world. In the real world they are free to make decisions like everyone else, making mistakes along the way. This they know. Let them go.