Teenagers’ Will Do Talking This Time

Tue., Oct. 10, 1995

By Rebecca Nappi rebeccan@spokesman.com (509) 459-5496

The high school senior had a short haircut, clear skin, a smile every orthodontist would love to claim. He was an honors student, headed for an Ivy League college. One day he stood on a sidewalk near a bank, about 10 feet away from a middle-aged man using a money machine. The man suddenly turned around.”Do you mind moving a few feet back?” he asked the teen. “I’d feel more comfortable.”

The student couldn’t believe it. This middle-aged man felt threatened by him? He wondered: “If this adult is scared of me and I look so ‘normal’ how must he react to teens who dress weird?”

The teens in our lives face discrimination on a daily basis, and the discrimination is often invisible to adults. Shopkeepers follow teens around stores. Adults lock their car doors against groups of young people. Recently, at a seminar for high school students, a sign posted near the elevators read: “Elevators for adults only.”

Many adults interact with teens based on stereotypes. They think most teens are up to no good. Or they remember when they were young and assume all young people think and act as they once did. Most of all, adults often talk at teens and don’t listen.

On Wednesday, from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Lewis and Clark High School cafeteria, adults will finally do the listening. The Chase Youth Commission and The Spokesman-Review’s Our Generation section are sponsoring “STV Unplugged: Spokane Teen Voices.” The public forum for young people will be moderated by Angel Troutt, a Lewis and Clark High School senior and member of the commission’s teen advisory council, and Anne Windishar, Our Generation editor.

Teens will be asked to give their views on family, education, employment, diversity, entertainment and crime. And they will be asked what they think is needed to make Spokane a better place for teens.

It won’t be a gripe session. The focus will be on solutions and creative ideas. Dozens of adults have been invited - men and women who shape public policy at the local, regional and state level, plus law enforcement and school officials. But their only job is to listen.

The hope is that these adults will then better understand teens, and incorporate their ideas, when they return to their council offices, police departments, school boards.

This is an open invitation to teens throughout the Spokane area who can spare two hours Wednesday afternoon.

Come to Lewis and Clark with your opinions and ideas. The stage belongs to you. Jump on it.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Rebecca Nappi/For the editorial board

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