Dr. Berkowitz Examines Teen Misconceptions

Alan Berkowitz, an independent consultant focused on addressing health and social justice issues, spoke at Friday’s assembly, catching the students’ attention with unexpected information he shared about high-schoolers.The data he presented overwhelmingly suggested that people and communities have a tendency to focus on the negative aspects of one other, rather than the positive.Berkowitz began his assembly, which he called “Creating a Safe and Welcoming Exeter Community for All,” by describing the unfair ways in which high school and college students are stereotyped and outlining some of the common misconceptions students have about one other. Many students were particularly taken aback when Berkowitz informed them that 40% of college students are, by choice, not sexually active, contrary to what modern media might suggest.

“We all make decisions every day based on the information that we have, and it is important to have correct information.”

In discussing the drastic difference between true student mentalities and legitimate statistics, Berkowitz explained that most students underestimate the positive forces of their communities and overestimate the negative ones. According to Berkowitz, this is because problematic behavior is inherently more memorable than positive. “I guess when you perceive something to be ‘normal’ behavior, you're more likely to do it or try it,” lower Adrian Venzon said.Berkowitz also introduced a concept called pluralistic ignorance. When students believe that activities such as drinking or being sexually active are popular, he explained, they are influenced to do the same, even if they are wrong about the true frequency of the activity. According to Berkowitz, this is why problematic behavior has become more prominent in society today, he said: social stereotypes become expectations and this translates to children starting to behave in harmful ways early on.Berkowitz offered the audience many statistics that indicate that high school students are idealistic, caring and willing to do the right thing, contradicting common stereotypes against them. “We all make decisions every day based on the information that we have, and it is important to have correct information,” he said. Often what we think is true for our friends and peers is based on inaccurate information due to our noticing only what is more visible to us.”Berkowitz also shared the results of his own research and analysis of media coverage, which found that seven out of ten California news stories about violence covered youth violence rather than adult violence. Problem behavior, he said, is over-reported, and among 9,678 stories that network and local television stories covered, there were only nine instance of teens being praised for involvement in helping the community. Because so much of the media highlights problematic behavior, many perceive is as more more prevalent in youth culture than it actually is. Berkowitz said that in actuality, high school students do the right thing more frequently than most expect.According to Berkowitz, his career has always been driven by the desire to “make the world a better place.” After inheriting and analyzing statistics about problematic youth behavior at the beginning of his career, Berkowitz was motivated to share these facts with others. “It is inspiring to have the opportunity to share the good news about health, well-being and social justice because knowing the 'good news' will help us to take action to solve the problems that cause the 'bad news,” he said.Berkowitz expressed hope that his assembly encouraged students to seek the truth about themselves and others. “If the beginning of self-knowledge is to ‘know that we don't know’ then my hope is that Exeter students will begin to question their assumptions about each other and to seek out the truth about what is true for Exonians, which is that you are all more healthy and more willing to ‘do the right thing’ than you realize,” he said. He also hopes that seeking truth and straying from the social expectations will “lead to knowing one’s Self, capital S,” as he said towards the end of his assembly.Although his message was honest and inspiring, some students felt that Berkowitz’s presentation lacked relevancy for the audience. “I felt like I was in middle school again. It was very tailored for younger people in my opinion,” Venzon said.Berkowitz’s assembly did validate those who are true to themselves, however. He ended his speech by expressing gratitude to those who live with integrity and self-knowledge, and his last presentation slide simply stated, “Thank you for being the person that you are.”