The Maturity Gap

I was thinking today about the jump in maturity that our students seem to experience year to year and whether that is just a fact of life or something else. Obviously, I’m not fit to judge my own maturation process. Looking back, I feel like my maturity didn’t improve by leaps and bounds between my first freshman year and my second. The process was more gradual (at least from my perspective). I see my students and the changes seem like night and day. Coming from a flawed perspective or not, it got me thinking.

After further musings on the topic, I decided that one of the key reasons for this is the time frame. Students in Southeast become adults at age 18. That’s how it works. The only early route is having a baby. Unlike my students, I saw 18 as a very different transition. I’d be going to college and would still be very much dependent on my parents. I had the luxury of more time to mature and could pursue that goal methodically (or if the assumption of method is too presumptuous, we can at least say I could take my time).

The socio-economic gap and the need to grow up fast in certain respects likely means the process is less even. Any of us who have seen parents fly off the handle know that they don’t have the level of maturity we remember parents having. A colleague of mine mentioned that life expectancy should also be factored into this. Adulthood comes faster but doesn’t last as long. This is only going to further the maturity gaps.

Taken to the next level, we began discussing how our students sometime display maturity beyond our own (some of them have kids after all and I’m certainly not ready for that ballgame). In their environment, that’s an area where you will likely need a high level of maturity. Unfortunately, that same environment demands very little academic maturity (or maturity related to acquiring academic skills). Consequently, they don’t grow up in this respect with the same haste.

This thought is still very much half formed but it’s something I’m going to keep in the back of my mind as I deal with my little 9th grade babies and their grating refrain “Can I get some candy?”

Flat-out wrong

Several of my students asked me today why I wasn’t wearing some sort of Polo brand shirt. Those of you who know me can attest to my lack of interest in the finer points of men’s fashion (granted that Polo is likely not one of the finer points of men’s fashion only proves my thesis). Despite this, the students think I’m “flat-out” because I have a few items like this. They also grossly underestimate the amount of money I spend on such items and are surprisingly (unsurprisingly) unaware of online shopping. If it wasn’t a small reminder of the socio-economic disparities, I would find this completely hilarious. The vast majority of my non-shirt attire is purchased at Target. But they only see the stupid little Pony. This would also be completely hilarious if it wasn’t a small reminder of their myopic life experiences.