Science verses gang bangers

[blueshift]

I could use all of your help. I need some input from each of you.

I found part-time employment as a school bus driver to save up some money for a solar telescope, a big Dob, a better spectroscope, etc. I drive gang bangers to school each day at a STEP program here in Illinois.

While there are many contrasts in how a scientist views things compared to a gang banger, the largest difference that I pointed out to one of the teachers there was that, as far as I can recall, those of us influenced by science spent much fewer hours hanging around each other in our free time than the gangs do. I told them that we usually would meet about once a month on the average. Sometimes it would be more when there was a project we would be working on to completion that could require three days in a row. Also, we would contact each other by phone back then
(I assume e-mailings are done nowadays) between projects or occasionally be picking up some parts on a week end at places like American Science and Surplus (www.sciplus.com) but we didn't surround ourselves with our peers as often.

Now my estimation could be off and I need others here to kick in their own experience..Right now our astronomy club meets every full moon. We do see each other more often in the summer with better attendence at star parties occuring then but averaging in the whole year still likely comes to once a month.

We could still get into trouble with the law. I sent up a number of rockets that brought police at times and another toy I played with http://www.angelfire.com/sc/BOBBYNVENUSTRIKEPAGE/history.html had police pulling me over constantly to see if it was street legal.

How about your experience? About how often did you chill together with your friends in formative years. I am not including hours spent at school or on any project itself. Those numbers are obviously higher.

It just seems that the bangers I drop off and pick up are around each other constantly at school and after school and into the night each day..They do not seem to have any time to reflect upon things. It all seems like impulsive action and reaction. If they plan a bank heist they would do it right now whereas we might over engineer the whole thing and then lose interest once it became a bore to think about it. Other things would come up in the world of science that would interfere and reinforce something positive and bring our attention..like a NASA flight or a new car model or a new discovery in medicine.. The bangers get reinforced by the likes of John Wayne Gacy..

Post your comments..

[Jigsaw]

I could use all of your help. I need some input from each of you.

I found part-time employment as a school bus driver to save up some money for a solar telescope, a big Dob, a better spectroscope, etc. I drive gang bangers to school each day at a STEP program here in Illinois.

While there are many contrasts in how a scientist views things compared to a gang banger, the largest difference that I pointed out to one of the teachers there was that, as far as I can recall, those of us influenced by science spent much fewer hours hanging around each other in our free time than the gangs do. I told them that we usually would meet about once a month on the average. Sometimes it would be more when there was a project we would be working on to completion that could require three days in a row. Also, we would contact each other by phone back then
(I assume e-mailings are done nowadays) between projects or occasionally be picking up some parts on a week end at places like American Science and Surplus (www.sciplus.com) but we didn't surround ourselves with our peers as often.

Now my estimation could be off and I need others here to kick in their own experience..Right now our astronomy club meets every full moon. We do see each other more often in the summer with better attendence at star parties occuring then but averaging in the whole year still likely comes to once a month.

We could still get into trouble with the law. I sent up a number of rockets that brought police at times and another toy I played with http://www.angelfire.com/sc/BOBBYNVENUSTRIKEPAGE/history.html had police pulling me over constantly to see if it was street legal.

How about your experience? About how often did you chill together with your friends in formative years. I am not including hours spent at school or on any project itself. Those numbers are obviously higher.

It just seems that the bangers I drop off and pick up are around each other constantly at school and after school and into the night each day..They do not seem to have any time to reflect upon things. It all seems like impulsive action and reaction. If they plan a bank heist they would do it right now whereas we might over engineer the whole thing and then lose interest once it became a bore to think about it. Other things would come up in the world of science that would interfere and reinforce something positive and bring our attention..like a NASA flight or a new car model or a new discovery in medicine.. The bangers get reinforced by the likes of John Wayne Gacy..

Post your comments..
All I see is that you're simply dealing with a different subset of human temperaments. There are the solitary science/geek types who enjoy spending hours or days putting together a project by themselves, and there are the social types who would rather hang with their buddies.

I don't think it's fair to the busload of social types to say that because they don't happen to enjoy spending long hours by themselves--and because they're in a STEP program--that they're "reinforced by John Wayne Gacy".

I also see that you're dealing with teenagers, and perhaps you are forgetting (from your lofty adult perspective :D ) just how short a teenager's attention span can be. Not all teenagers are interested in spending days putting together a model rocket, you know. Many teenagers who aren't (quote unquote) "gangbangers" are just as unsettled and have just as short attention spans, and would be just as likely to plan a bank heist on the spur of the moment as your busload of STEP-kids.

What's your point here, anyway? "Science Geeks Good, Gang-Bangers Bad"?

Which STEP program is it? The Summer Training & Employment Program? Or is it some other acronym?

[farmerjumperdon]

I'd say the amount of time spent together has nothing to do with it - it's how the time is spent. My best friends and I (a pretty small circle at all ages) spent most of our waking moments together. Great memories - sports, building forts, hiking in the woods, a little fireworks, and some other usual kids mischief stuff. Things like possible bank heists or hurting anyone just weren't in the mix. I usually look first to parents, then to other role models as a first step to understanding what happened to kids that have fallen by the wayside. (I have done quite a bit of work with "troubled" teens by volunteering at high schools, alternative learning centers, Junior Achievement, etc.). Kids are almost always doing what they think is "good" - just that their ideas about good, bad, right, wrong, etc can get pretty warped by what they see going on around them.

[jrkeller]

I don't think how much time you spend with your friends is the problem, because almost all of my free time was spent with my two neighbor friends. I think it is (or was in my case) how much time your parents spent with you and how involved they were with you.

I did plenty of science projects, because I lived in the post-Sputnik era. Almost every boy and some girls in my neighborhood flew model rockets and could tell you all about the Saturn V, Apollo CSM and LM. But at the same time we did plenty of typical teenagers things: Just hanging out, playing pranks on our neighbors, fighting with our parents, listening to music aimlessly driving around, listening to music, my crank phonecalls, looking at Playboys, fighting with neighbors kids, camping, hiking, etc. They were very good times.

Here's the primary reason I didn't end up a criminal or something similar, my parents.

If I got in trouble at school, the punishment that the school gave out was nothing compared to what my parents would do. If I got in trouble outside of schools, I got punished for that too. If my teachers said that I wasn't doing well in a certain subject, my parents came up with there own extra homework that I had to complete before I could play.

I was also taught respect for other adults, the police, teachers, doctors and women/girls. I would never dream of calling any adult by their first name, but that seems to be fairly common place these days. More importantly, I was taught that I was responsible for my own actions, and it wasn't the fault of my upbringing, my friends, the school, my mother or whatever the current fad is this week.

[Mephisto]

I think you do the gangbangers a disservice. Most people (whose minds haven't been purposely shut by religion, abuse, etc.) have an in-built fascination with the unknown. It could be that they just haven't been presented with the same opportunities to realise their potential as we have. For example - I found biology the most boring thing possible when I was at high school, but I realised later that the main reason for that was my teacher, who could have bored a trainspotter to death. He had a terriffic gift for turning even the most interesting topic into mundane frippery- and that's why I didn't care about science until I got to university.

I read heavily (usually two or three novels a week, as well as my usual non-fiction reading which can vary from hours to weeks), spend a lot of time with my telescope and have quite a demanding class schedule - but I still spend the majority of time with my friends. Even more so when I was younger - and my school results suffered because of it. Humans are social animals, and the greatest and most fulfilling pleasure can only be found by balancing individual intellectual pursuits within the context of a larger group of close friends (each of my friends has their own field of study and interest, which makes for terriffic conversations and arguments). The more I learn about the enormity of the universe and comprehend the elegant mechanics of its operation, the more I remember that it's the simple human things which actually add meaning to ones life - being with friends, falling in love, laughing and crying.

An interest in science and having close friends who you see often are not mutually exclusive - though many geeks (and I adopt this label myself) use that as an excuse not to to even bother, or to excuse unsociable behaviour that drives others away.

Give the gangbangers a chance. Ask about them. Tell them what you do. Don't start off assuming you're smarter than them - I made that mistake once with a cocky hoodlum and had my intellectual *** handed to me. Communicate to them what inspires you about science and you may find you may have more in common than you realise.

[blueshift]

These are all good replies. I was looking for a variety of inputs and got a few of them.

Actually, I don't put down the gang bangers on the bus as much as you may think. I was drawing a contrast in hours spent near peers. I wasn't sure what everyone else's experience was and was willing to bet that some reactions would come forth. I developed most of my skill in isolation as did many others in science I knew but had a hunch that not everyone shared that. That is why I posted this. I am not smarter than them. They are fascinating puzzles and one of my sons was a lot like them.

I told them after the first week I drove them: " I respect your blunt honesty you have for each other. There is no back stabbing when someone departs from the bus. You unload your emotions right on each other. Your relationship to rules has more insight than others might assume. Think of a "no trespassing " sign on a vacant lot. The owner doesn't really care if you break a leg on his lot but the sign's presence really means you cannot sue him. The cops will come along and chase you away but they are aware you are going to return. They did their job and they are relieved of any responsibilities for your risky behavior. Therefore, if you break your leg on that lot you can only look into the mirror to find responsibility.
When you get tired of yourselves you will change. When you get tired of winding up in the same old ruts and grow bored with yourselves, you will throw away your foolishness like it is an old toy. And you will be disgusted with it. The desire to rebel is the desire to bring change so it is not all bad. it just needs some engineering. Some of you will likely wind up in jail and some of you will wind up rich, taking lessons from this experience that others outside it are lacking."

STEP stands for Student Therapy Educational Program.

The world around them does reinforce their behavior in many ways. STEP sees that the word they hate the most is "no" while I see the word they hate the most is "wait" or any word they implies their waiting or showing patience. Their taggings are reflections of everything around them. The American flag is a tagging..The town name where they live is a tagging. The bus number and the route number is a tagging. They see those things as "theirs".

They have the same emotions as we all do and form romantic pair bonds just as the rest of us do. One student got so upset when his girl friend didn't make it on board that he walked right off and went home though he was two miles away. His day seemed ruined without her and I told him that I was envious of the warmth he has for her and that I never felt that way about someone when I was his age.

Their fights on the bus are actually like a check-and-balance system in action. No one really wants to dominate but each does want to pass to the others that he will not take any crap from them. They exchange racial insults yet will still bond together and fighting they see as a way of expressing honesty and raw emotions. Dope is killing them and some are getting away from it.

People can leave gangs while the media makes that out to be impossible. It operates more like a bank. If you are not in debt to the bank you do not owe it a thing. One student left the gang a month ago without a thing happening to him..His favorite movie is October Sky..

Now, enough of what I just said..I am hoping for more inputs here. i find it interesting that some of you had a lot of hang time with friends and some of the different things you seem to be involved with. Friendship did not play a major role in my life although loose acquaintances did exist.