You gotta love it. The Young Adult fiction genre.
The above graphic is borrowed from the South Korean 2020 film, Young Adult Matters IMDb. It's used to more honestly illustrate what very often goes on behind the smiles shown adults for obvious reasons.
I have always loved, along with the consistent multi-millions worldwide, the YA fiction phenomenon. It wasn't just Harry Potter forever, or the Twilight series, the Hunger Games franchise, Divergent, Maze Runner, The Fault in Our Stars, An Ember in The Ashes, Children of Blood and Bone, The Hate U Give, etc. blockbusters that got me, but it was also the constant stream of the less renown but must reads that kept me invested and glued to the YA fiction world. Notwithstanding having the privilege of working with young adults in life coaching venues, formal teaching, family and friends of family. In addition, there is bonus daughter in her teaching career..
My bonus daughter is a high school English teacher (9th to 12th) who has been teaching teenagers for the last 18 years. In all those years we've heard and often heard again the countless stories of her plethora of students. She feels blessed and fortunate to have taught the span of ages--14-18--in all colors, cultures, shapes and sizes, economics, brilliant, not-so-smart, athletic, laid back, and of late in class and on Zoom.
All those good, bad and ugly stories have been really all good. Many were hilarious, especially the variety of dramatic ways in which she told them. They all shared a similar theme--it wasn't easy being a teen, although some cases were easier than others, most harder than others. In her entire teaching experience however, the last two to three years has shown that similarity to have radically shifted. High school lit teaching has taken on a new era of sensitivity and periods of wellness counseling mandated with the academic instruction. It's important to note that Phoenix has always specialized in the sensitivity and respect approach to her teaching style, but not like now, not like today.
I recall my own experiment working with a diverse in every way, group of high schoolers. I had been TOL (talk or talking out loud) about how K1-12 education in America had departed from dummy down to dummy flatlined. I got blasted for 'all talk' and no show. Then decided to show up. We invited the group into our home Friday nights for home cooked dinners, laughs and more personal education above and in addition to the academics they were getting in their classrooms. We planned it for a semester that turned into a decade of Friday nights with the EndWord. Most graduated from college with all becoming incredible critical thinkers and millennial mental models. They now TOL a lot, became affluent in so many areas, and in one particular case especially politically affluent. Another became a teacher himself with much more to say re: politics in education.
While the pundits and politicians argue in-classroom vs at-home classroom because of the Covid 19 pandemic, teachers in the classroom and on Zoom are doing the heavy lifting necessary to continue teaching this generation--the GenZers. The pandemic has certainly brought on major challenges affecting and specifically targeting this generation. However, it came at a time when there were already significant problems in place with teens and pre-teens, and served to exacerbate, extend and expand those difficulties beyond our control while imagining they were still in our control.
The mistake is made of comparing the now youngest generation to "our generation." A colleague said, "There have been severe challenges in every generation and although this youngest generation has grown up digitally with gaming, social networking, hip-hop etc., it's really not that different." Except my friend that it is really that different. And that difference calls for or mandates a radical approach to reaching them and helping them navigate into an adult world that they must inevitably repair. Time's been up for repeating Einstein's insanity of "doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."
We appear to be losing the next generation, which reportedly cannot see a future for themselves. What is the next, effective and novel YA media we need to exploit to stop the current collapse? First, we have to not be afraid to see what it is. "Look the devil in the eye and tell him hands off," the Southern Baptist preacher said. Only thing is he should have done that long ago with his own generation but now it's much too serious for that fun. First, the truth. Second, isolate the main problem, and last but not least, create the fiction that's stronger than facts but respects the facts.
Maybe hit the YA pause button on literary magic, fantasy, dystopia and sci-fit. Because the present reality has more magic, fantasy, dystopia and sci-fit than we can imagine all built in. Only do imagine.
YA, you gotta love it. It's a keeper. when all else fails.
To be continued... Meanwhile, enjoy the BTS.