THE arrival in literary circles of the angry young man during the 1950s now seems very much outdated. Indeed, the works produced by that movement, such as Look Back in Anger and A Kind of Loving, now seem to portray those far off postwar days as a time of almost idyllic simplicity and innocence. In these more cynical times, it’s really quite difficult to recall what they were all quite so angry about.
While this might be true in literary terms, in real life, particularly among young people, the anger seems not only to have lived on, but to be increasing. Whereas their dramatic antecedents tended to direct their anger against authority, the state of the world and those who were apathetic, today’s anger seems to be targeted much closer to home. Many students are increasingly angry at themselves and act out their frustrations in a selection of sometimes life threatening ways.
There is growing concern about depression. While this seems to be more prevalent among boys, there is much to suggest that girls, despite increasing academic success, have their fair share of problems.
There are economic and sociological reasons behind these developments and certain groups of young people have higher rates of depression, but it is not limited to any one section of adolescence. Those who work with young people will tell worrying tales of an increase in self-harming behaviour and tantrums and of nihilistic views of the world.
Though all of this, in some measure, might be said to come with teenage territory, the worrying trends in teenage suicide suggest there is more to concern us than hormonal imbalance here.
Obviously this is frightening territory for teachers, who are, after all, trained to deliver education rather than overcome psychological problems. However, we cannot ignore the fact that education could, and should, be a force for optimism in a young person’s life. Indeed, for much of history and still in many parts of the world, the opportunity to be educated is the one positive hope for many young people growing up in depressed circumstances.
School discipline systems deal with symptoms; a wider based, collaborative approach is needed to tackle the causes of anger and depression among the young. The new community schools initiative is a step in the right direction but we also need to examine how we teach and deliver our expectations to our students.
In supporting pupils, we must also support teachers and if we fail to prioritise in this area it may not only be the pupils who need to attend anger control classes.
