What High School Is Now

High school is an ever-changing process. As I think back to my last three years of High School things like clothes, language, and even hairstyles have transformed. If in three years so much can change imagine, how much things have changed since our parents were in school. From "bell-bottoms" to "baggy jeans", from "groovy" to "slammin", and from the infamous "pompadour" to the now popular "buzz cut". If these things are so different, I wonder how much other things have changed? One of the biggest changes, since my parents were in high school, is the way birth control, sex educations, and sexual activity are looked at. When my mom was in high school a girl could not just go to a doctor and ask for the pill, she had to have parental consent. Nowadays anyone at any time can get some form of birth control whether it be condoms, birth control pills, etc. Sex education in my moms' day was mainly used to tell kids about the fundamentals of sex. They did not expect the kids they were teaching it to were going to go out and have sex. Today it is taught to educate teens of the risks and repercussions of sex. Then there's sex itself, in my moms day sex was not accepted like it is today. If you were a sexually active person you didn't tell anyone, especially if you were a girl. Because of television today and other forms of media sex is all over the place, therefore being pumped in to kids heads as acceptable. Marijuana is another big topic when it comes to the changes over the last 35 years. When my mother was in high school people that smoked marijuana were not considered "cool" by the non-smokers. They were considered the outcasts and didn't associate much with the people who didn't use it. Presently, in high school, marijuana is more socially accepted and someone would not be cast out by his or her peers. I think it has a lot to do with the glamorization of it in the media today. Actors, musicians, and even comedians all talk about it like it's fun and exciting to do. With this constant glorifying of marijuana in all these aspects it just becomes part of a teenagers everyday life.

From Rock & Roll to Hip-Hop, Music has and will continue to be the biggest influence in teenage life. It influences such aspects in the life of a teenager as language, the way you dress and the people you hang out with. In our parents day music, for the most part, was a reason to break out and dance, where now most music is about the message and is mainly a past time. Musicians nowadays are a lot more open and expressive in their lyrics. If when our parents were in high school a musical group had used even half the obscenities they say now people would have been shocked and disgusted where it is accepted now by just about everyone. A lot of adults say things like " music these days has no meaning". If they just took the time to listen to what the artist has to say they would realize that they are saying pretty much the same things as the people in their day did just with more expressive words. Times change, people change, and attitudes change as I've shown in this essay. Since my mom was in school a lot has changed and I imagine that things will continue to change for decades to come. Over the last three or four days I've learned some things about my mothers generation and I hope in the future I will be able to shed light on my generation to my kids.