I've come to a dread realization.
A realization that makes me terribly upset, but is truth nonetheless.
I hate teen Wiccans.
No, I don't hate them all, there
are a few I can number on any one hand and say I don't dislike them, but
a vast majority- the Silver RavenWolf reading, neogoth, MTV babypagans who
I meet every day, who ask me for spells and tell me, as an accessible teacher,
that I am obligated to teach them- and that if they don't meet my requirements-
grammatical ability, parental permission, a personality I like, I
am at fault for not teaching them. NOT THEY.
I'm trying to see it as a generational
thing without sounding like an old coot. I returned to college after
a long absense, and majored in Biology, among other things, and in one class,
where I struggled, I got a D+. There is nothing wrong with a D+, except
having to repeat the class- except for the fact that I got a D+ because I
fell in the statistical middle of the class- nothing wrong with that, either.
Except the statistical top of the class, with a handful of exceptions, cheated.
Crib notes on the desks, stealing
the homework of others by hacking email servers, sabotaging people's experiments.
I knew it went on, the Teaching assistants knew it was going on, and nothing
has been done.
These 175 Biology students have
been in the same classes together for four years. There is a core group of
students whose GPAs are very telling- straight As or Bs outside of the classes
they share with this group of 50 cheaters- Ds, Cs, even Fs in these big lectures.
And the 50 core cheaters are easily obvious too, who gets an A in Organic
Chemistry but Fails Calculus and Freshman English? Scared yet??? These
50 core cheaters are all Pre-Med at a major University, they'll be your doctors
soon.
But what does this have to do with
Teen Wiccans?
I think it is a post-gen X concept-
the idea that you are obligated to be taught, and obligated to do well without
WORK. I don't know what your parents did to teach you this, and certainly
my own Teenage sister- 15 years younger than I-was raised by a woman who
did not teach her this-and she sees the same stuff in her High School- the
students who were driven in the past to study hard are now driven to find
new and unique ways to cheat. Colleges that take the top 10% now will get
more cheaters than honest students..
I think these Teen Wiccans, especially
those who cheat Wicca by studying it against their parent's wishes or by
lying about their age, or who read a book and declare themselves Wiccan,
or label covens or teachers as bad because they are so special they don't
have to follow rules, are the worst thing that has ever happened to our faith.
Whenever I try to let myself be proven wrong they do it again.
I am tired or being hurt by the
cheaters I try to trust, and I'm tired of hating Teen Wiccans. Can
just ONE prove me wrong?
