Still a kid

I was talking to Dylan the other day and he said I'm the sort of person that people won't be able to imagine I was once young when I'm older. This is a kind of ironic statement because I've been thinking a lot recently about how young I feel. I am the youngest person in my program. I say things the other people don't say (eg, "That blows" or excessive use of the word "totally"). And there's nothing wrong with the stuff I say. It's not even that immature or young sounding. But the thing is, I really watch myself and my language when I'm with them, mostly because I don't think they'd take my standard jokes the way the co-opers or other people who know me well would. And I still don't feel like my language quite fits in. My advisor compared the way I speak to Juno from the movie. Someone else agreed. She was supposed to be a high school student, and she does kind of talk like it. I guess I've got a young sound.

And it's not just with my cohort. Lately I've been struck a lot with the sense that I'm really very young. I've never been ashamed of playing video games, but recently I have gotten the sense that it's a really young activity. I know that's not really true; there are a lot of older people who still play video games. In fact, the average age has been steadily increasing.

On a tangent, that stuff about the average age of gamers increasing makes a lot of sense. When they first came out, video games were pretty challenging and required a totally new set of skills. Pressing buttons with careful timing was not a skill our grandparents had to learn. Now little kids are always learning new things. They kind of suck at everything they do because they're learning how to do all of it. They're learning how to walk, how to pour milk without spilling, how to behave at the dinner table, etc. All the commonplace things that are easy to us now, they still struggle with. So they're a lot more used to struggle. They're a lot more willing to engage in struggle because it's all around them. Everything they do is hard, so it doesn't matter that much if they get some new hard thing to do. This could be why kids are better at learning new things than adults; they're generally not afraid to try and they often won't stop after the first few failed attempts, if for no other reason that that they're accustomed to failing at everything.

So video games aren't really that hard to learn. The earliest ones could be incredibly challenging, but video game designers have wised up since then. They need to make games just hard enough to be satisfying when when you beat them. And there are also fewer consequences for losing. Back in the day, losing meant starting over from square one. Now losing means starting a 15 minute level over again, or reloading a recent save. Failure is still disappointing. It always is for anybody, no matter how few consequences there are. But now failure is less likely to discourage people and cause them to quit.

So even though video games are more attractive and more widespread among kids now than they were when they first came out, the age is still increasing. Video games were originally classified as a little kid's thing and that classification has been a little self fulfilling I think. Some people feel like once they reach a certain age, maybe it's time for them to stop. The people who don't play do tend to look down on video games and cling fast to that "it's a kid's game" mentality, and the condescension, I've found, gets worse with age. But video games are not really a kid's thing. It just makes sense that people would only be interested in starting as a child because adults are so unaccustomed to failure (most people get to be pretty good at avoiding it). So all the new recruits are young, but there are some older veterans who are still at it (such as me!). These veterans are still at it because video games really are fun for all ages. You just have to accept a certain degree of failure initially, but most people can't get past that.

Though to get back to my main point, even though the average age of gamers is increasing, there are still a lot of older people who do not play. Older gamers are still a minority. I imagine that the demographic will steadily change over time, especially as video game ads start trying to target different demographics (look at how popular the Wii is), but for right now, video games still carry a stigma of being a younger person's activity. Maybe that's part of the reason I feel so young. I flaunt some of my attributes that people consider young. I mean, I did a report for class on video games. None of my other colleagues are doing that. In fact, some of them are doing reports on how video games are harmful. When someone mentions that video games kill your brain, I often disagree. I'm actually fairly confident that I'm right on this one, but that doesn't mean that I don't get affiliated with something that is classified as a kid's toy.

But that's not really the only reason I feel young. Some of my mannerisms strike me as a little young too. I said something to Jake today about something that could have gone better in class and I said it in front of a few of middle school students who didn't know me or who I was. I was a little sheepish and a little like "I guess I messed up," which in retrospect is also not a very adult thing to do, but afterwards one of the kids asked me if I was a student. That happened once when I was observing in high school, but I really wasn't expecting that to happen in middle school. I even dress up for school in part to prevent that! Sheesh!

But that's still not the only reason I feel young. I'm also arrogant like a little kid. I've got a little kid's confidence and misunderstanding of the situation. I've heard that ignorance begets confidence, and I definitely believe it. I first started teaching pretty sure that I'd be able to explain things great so the kids would understand it. It's a lot more complicated than that. I've been kind of down about my teaching lately. It's on the low end of mediocre. I'm not being a pessimist or anything. It's true. On the bright side, I used to be piss poor. Now I'm almost mediocre. Actually, I think that shows pretty sharp improvement over a short period of time, but I'm still not pleased with being mediocre. I will get it eventually. This isn't something you just start out being good at (much like video games in that respect). I'm still chafing a little at being average. I've never really been average, so I don't like the feeling. I feel confident that I'll improve a lot, and I'm not going to stop when the going gets tough either. If there's one thing I've learned from grad school it's that you have to keep struggling with something and not quitting in order to learn. I'll eventually get to be good enough that I can handle what goes on in my classroom and that's going to be really satisfying when it happens. But until then I have to deal with mediocrity.

Perhaps that's another reason I've been feeling so young lately. Nothing makes you feel mature like competency and nothing makes you feel young like incompetency. I am in a situation right now that's very similar to when I was young. I'm struggling to do well and only managing to do ok. In college, I struggled to do well and I did. In high school I struggled to do well and I did so in some classes and did ok in others. At the end of high school, I was convinced that I wasn't really into history or science since I wasn't so hot at those subjects. It's weird to think that now. I'm still not that well versed in history. I've forgotten a lot of the dates and the details, but I also recognize that it's just a matter of understanding the situation thoroughly, not as a collection of details, but as a cohesive scenario. I think I could do it now. And as for science, pshaw. I use that stuff all the time. I would kick high school science's ass with ease if I had it do over again. Sometimes I think back to high school and wish I could go through it again, just so that I could pwn it so hard. The SATs wouldn't have shit on me (now there's a young phrase). I could totally wow the teachers and get kickass recommendations. I think a lot of them found me immature and unruly. Since high school, I've totally mastered the fake, proper, overly respectful attitude I use around conservatives. Even though it's total bullshit, conservatives want to believe that shit, so they eat it right up. And this is another example of me feeling young. Sometimes when I'm observing Jake in his 4th period class (so that I have material for my 2nd period class), he'll ask a question and I'll have to stop myself from raising my hand to respond. I feel like a student. I feel like a little kid. I feel really young.

When I was younger, I was always being told to grow up or act my age. It frustrated me a lot because I was always convinced that I was acting my age. I just happened to be at an age when people are giddy and silly and talk out of turn. Right now, there's no one telling me to grow up, but I nonetheless feel a lot of pressure to do so. Perhaps it's just become internalized by now, or perhaps I just don't like the feeling of incompetence and not knowing what's going on that goes hand in hand with being young, but I think I need to just grin and bear it. I do not think it would serve me well to "grow up" at this time. I really don't want to forget what it's like to be a kid. As it is, I don't really know what it's like to be a real struggling student with low confidence in their intelligence. It's true that I thought there were some subjects that I was better at than others, but even in my difficult subjects, it's not like I did that bad and I never really thought it was beyond me. Some students are really bad at math and I can't quite relate to them as well. So I've already got some issues relating to some students; I shouldn't make it worse by trying to grow up faster than I should. I've known people who couldn't stand being told to grow up and then proceeded to do so, beyond their maturity level. It didn't exactly make them well rounded individuals *cough*Matoots*cough*. If you work so hard to change yourself like that, you become really negative toward people who don't, especially since they usually look happier than you. I can hold off on growing up. I don't exactly have a rapport with my students, but that might come later when I actually know how to manage a class. By growing up now, I might lose that potential even if I do eventually get the classroom management down.

So I guess I'll be feeling young for a while longer. It's a little unpleasant really. Being young has a lot of unpleasant feelings of not really understanding the world around you. Being young makes up for it though by having very few responsibilities and requirements. Now I feel young, but I still have all kind of responsibilities and things to do. Balls. But I just have to grin and bear it a while longer. That maturity will come at some point. I just have to be patient about it.