Spend much time with Newt Gingrich, and you?re bound to hear a profound idea about improving American society.
His latest idea ? offered in the pages of Business Week ? is to scrap adolescence:
The costs of this social experiment have been horrendous. For the poor who most need to make money, learn seriously, and accumulate resources, adolescence has helped crush their future. By trapping poor people in bad schools, with no work opportunities and no culture of responsibility, we have left them in poverty, in gangs, in drugs, and in irresponsible sexual activity. As a result, we have ruined several generations of poor people who might have made it if we had provided a different model of being young.
And for too many middle-class and wealthier young Americans, adolescence has been an excuse to delay work, family, and achievement?and thus contribute less to their own well-being and that of their communities.
It’s time to change this?to shift to serious work, learning, and responsibility at age 13 instead of age 30. In other words, replace adolescence with young adulthood. But hastening that transition requires integrating learning into life and work.
