Graffiti as a Voice for Teens Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Graffiti as a Voice for Teens - Term Paper Example Peer pressure may be in either positive or negative ways; where the students that succumb to its negative side, will end up making bad choices that lead them to a slippery slope. The result of a slippery slope is the unfortunate development of bad habits such as smoking, alcohol and/or drug abuse and engaging in criminal activities. For this reason, every high school should create an open forum for the students where they are free and at ease to discuss challenges they face in their everyday lives. Teachers and counselors should then be at hand to talk them through overcoming the challenges and turning them into opportunities for growth and success into the future. In creating such an open forum, the school should consider the emotional, physical and mental status of the students and come up with creative and exciting activities in order to encourage their participation. Considering their emotional, physical and mental status includes recognizing that the students will be talented in different areas where non-performance in academics does not render them failures. Students may instead be skilled in non-academic activities such as painting, drawing, playing musical instruments or photography. Teachers should hence, reserve this in mind when interacting with the students in the class. The administration should also consider this when structuring such open forums. The adolescent has thoughts and interpretations about various issues in their environment and will want to express these through various means. Because of their youthfulness, their energy needs to be directed into positive ways of voicing their views and opinions to prevent them from being destructive. Besides that, there may be students that lack interest in political or environmental issues, which undoubtedly will affect them. The administrations should then use the ‘crowd mentality’ to arouse interest in such students using creative works from the students that have an interest.