A long time ago I listened to "The Bell Curve" on tape. One of valuable ideas I got from the book was that we should strive to create a valuable place for everyone in society. Everyone, whether young or old, intelligent or not, should feel that they are contributing something of value. No one should feel that they have nothing to give and that society would be better off without them. Furthermore, we should encourage everyone to give their best to society. Thus, if the best effort a man with an IQ of 80 can do is sweep the streets, then we should give him job as a streetsweeper and not replace him with a robot.

To me, this idea, that everyone should have a valuable place is society, explains what's wrong with adolescence. We as a society do not allow adolescents (young adults) a valuable place in society; we should be encouraging them to do the most useful work they can do; instead we discourage them. Sure, there is encouragement for being a scholar and for excelling in sports, but only a few adults are gifted in those areas: those few who will later go on to be teachers, professors, writers, and professional sports players. The rest of them are forced to do work which they are not good at, which they don't value, and which society doesn't value. Is it any wonder they become bored and turn to other things?

A better system is described in an old book I recently re-read, "Farmer Boy" (http://www.amazon.com/Farmer-Little-House-Ingalls-Wilder/dp/...), not long ago which describes the life of a boy on a farm in New York in the 19th century. He was given as much work and responsibility on the farm as he could handle and he grew to the challenges. At school he learned to read and write and do arithmetic, and at home on the farm he learned to do useful work, negotiate, and spend wisely. When he was about ten or eleven, a wagon-maker offered to apprentice him. In return for several years of work, the boy would get room and board and training in the whole business of wagon-making with the likelihood that at the end of the period, he would buy the business which employed about 50 men. His father preferred that the boy become a farmer like he was, but he let the boy decide, saying to his mother, "We can keep him here on the farm by law til he's twenty-one, but he won't do any good if he's wanting to go."

Such a system worked very well in the past because it efficiently transitioned young people from a state of dependence on their parents to independence and it's accompanying responsibilities. A possible problem with that system is that it offered young people few opportunities beyond what was available to their parents. However, even then adults had a lot of opportunity to improve their situations by working harder at their jobs and by educating themselves. Today, there are many more opportunities. The job market is global: if you're not getting paid what you're worth, it's easier than any other time in history to find someone who will pay you more. Educational opportunities abound: books are relatively cheap, there are lots of libraries where you can read for cheap or for free, the Internet has lots of educational resources, and there are many institutions offering formal education. In addition, the number of work hours needed to survive is smaller than ever. So the argument that young adults need to be restrained from working and confined to public schools for several years because they won't have an opportunity to educate themselves later is unconvincing.