An Intimate Understanding of America's Teenagers

Recently Released Book by Bruce Gevirtzman Offers Parenting Advice

Sep 29, 2008 Mary McCarthy

This book, by high school teacher and coach Bruce Gevirtzman, could be helpful to those who interact with teens - parents, teachers, coaches or other youth workers.

An Intimate Understanding of America’s Teenagers: Shaking Hands with Aliens (Praeger Publishers, 2008) was written by Bruce Gevirtzman, a high school English teacher, coach, and drama director for nearly forty years. He notes that a major theme developed as he worked on the book.

“The problems teenagers faced forty years ago are identical to the problems they face today,” states Gevirtzman, adding that “the main difference is that today the intensity is way off the charts.” [Praeger Publishers, 2008] Factors contributing to this intensity include modern technology and media. The author also points out that teenagers have their own language (dubbed ‘teenagerese’) and that to understand them, you have to speak their language.

Assistance with Teen Issues

Gevirtzman includes 20 chapters in the book, offering assistance advice to a variety of people involved with teens. The chapters include The Rebel Paradox, Mirror, Mirror, Athletes, Arrogance and Angst, When Party Became a Verb, Sex, Oral Sex and ‘Hey, Everybody’s Doing It,’ Devouring Junk, and You Mean, When You’re Dead, You’re Dead? Communicating with teenagers on different levels and improving the ability to do so is an underlying theme in the book throughout all the chapters.

The Book’s Tone

The tone of the book is friendly, conversational and informal. The author writes from his own experiences and perspective as a trusted coach and teacher. The book would be especially helpful for any teachers or coaches of teenagers.

The author is also a parent. However, his children are not teenagers yet; an interesting fact to note, as parents of teenagers may agree you are not truly an expert on teenagers until you have parented your own. For those whose relationships with teens take place at the school or athletics level, however, Gevirtzman’s experiences are ones which contain great lessons in dealing with teens.

Advice to Teenagers

Another aspect of the book that is helpful is the advice Gevirtzman gives directly to teens. He tells teens to love the language they use, read a lot, take a speech class, find an adult confidant, go right to the source if someone is talking about you, and become good at something. Clearly, his experience working directly with teens has taught him a great deal about what life skills will be helpful to them, so this direct advice to teens is information that is very helpful to those who find themselves interacting with teenagers.

Overall, An Intimate Understanding of America’s Teenagers: Shaking Hands with Aliens is a good read for those who have teens in their lives or want to learn more about them.

Read more articles about Parenting Teens.

The copyright of the article An Intimate Understanding of America's Teenagers in Parenting Teens is owned by Mary McCarthy. Permission to republish An Intimate Understanding of America's Teenagers in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Understanding America's Teenagers