Stereotypes are sometimes hurtful and always frustrating, as anyone judged on their skin colour, gender, birthplace or age will tell you. There’s one stereotype that’s been appearing in the Gazette with regularity that demands attention.
In the debate over new school sites, specifically the location of a new high school, it’s been noted at least twice in the Gazette recently that a developer has stated teenagers don’t make good neighbours.
Why not? Well, most who hold that opinion would describe problems like litter, cigarette butts and negligent driving as reasons why teens don’t make good neighbours. However, one can travel down just about any street in St. Albert any day of the week and see litter, cigarette butts, negligent driving and other problems so such arguments hold no water.
In fact, arguments to the opposite view, that teens actually are good neighbours, look more realistic.
For instance, last week Gazette reporter Anna Borowiecki wrote a great story about Yasmeen Najmeddine, 14, and Alex Zaichkovski, 15, two Paul Kane High School students who are competing as semi-finalists in season six of YTV’s The Next Star.
The previous issue, reporter Scott Hayes did a solid piece about local student Katie Fitzgerald. This youthful leader could be a role model for a lot of people twice or three times her age after she earned the Young Achiever of the Year from the International Leadership Network. She told the Gazette, “It’s not about the money at all, or anything like that. That’s not why I volunteer,” Fitzgerald said. “I volunteer to give back.” Well said, Katie.
In May, the annual volunteer appreciation awards were held and the Bellerose bike-a-thon committee won a new prize called the Youth Volunteer Philanthropy Award for its decade of dedication to the popular event that sees hundreds of students ride stationary bicycles for 48 hours. The effort has raised almost $1 million for the Kids with Cancer Society and the Alberta Cancer Foundation. How many adult charities in town can say they raised a dollar figure like that?
Are the teens really that much worse as neighbours than adults living in residential neighbourhoods? Not judging by articles that appear in the Gazette from time to time. Plenty of land-use rows occur between adults. Attend any public hearing for a residential subdivision and the first complaint you will hear from neighbours trying to stop the subdivision is, “It’ll be too noisy.”
As a footnote, consider whether a high school really is that deplorable of a neighbour. The reality of school noise has little to do with teenagers: dozens of school buses showing up in the morning, dozens of school staff arriving in cars at the same time, various types of road maintenance vehicles operating in parking lots and the inevitable sports events on school fields.
Is the sound of a high school to be blamed on teenagers? Of course not.
The teens are no worse than any other group in our community, and whether a high school is placed in a community or not makes no difference to the noise level. There’s an old saying, “Good fences make good neighbours.”
If a high school is successfully developed in a residential neighbourhood through this debate, it will be as a result of straightforward consultation, good land-use planning and co-operation from everyone involved.
