I am who I am (unless they tell me to be someone different)

As I mentioned in class, I come from a psychological background. As the son of a child psychologist, I was exposed to several of my dad's thoughts about contemporary identity and personal image especially as I grew older and more capable of digesting the often corrosive comments he would throw at me. We would chuckle together about how nowadays success is not quantified in the same manner as it was a long time ago--like, back in the eighties when I grew up. As opposed to emphasizing winning in an athletic competition, for example (and I was very active in sports for the better part of my life), today all that matters is that people give it "their personal best and had fun." Anything else (like, oh I don't know...losing!) could potentially damage the vulnerable youth's self-image. My seven year-old cousin doesn't even get grades in his first grade class anymore because the school system has decided that grades cause more harm than good in stressing unneccessary competition between students. Instead he receives arbitrary classfication marks that have no universal translation and thus mean nothing to someone from the elementary school three miles down the road. While I have several reactions to the articles, I am going to keep those for class discussion on Tuesday. However, it seems to me that perhaps the cornerstone of my distain for contemporary notions of identity rests in irony that while we (and by "we", I mean adults, decision makers, etc.) are occupied much more now than ever before with helping children grow and develop strong senses of self, our benevolent attempts are drastically misguided. I fail to see how competition can cripple an identity anymore than a dress code or the censoring of books and other forms of media. One last thought: I think it behooves Americans to examine international perspectives on American teen identity and see, perhaps, if there are issues present that we have yet to discuss. For example, my experience both overseas and chatting with people from foreign countries tells me that while caucasian people must specify their national origin while in a foreign country so as not to be confused with a white European, Africans are widely considered by default, American citizens despite their salient presence in Europe, Asia, and guess what, Africa. What does this say about the image America projects about its national identity and how do we as scholars reconcile these distinctions? I hope that made sense...