Jenny from the block

When J-Lo started promoting her "Jenny From the Block"-persona it had a lot of appeal with young girls that wore the same pink track suits, big earrings and bubble gum lipgloss. Their jeans were so low cut that when they sat down it revealed their red thong. That is not a pleasant sight, especially when you're a teacher walking through a class.
sister_luck's recent post on what German kids think about the U.S.A. reminded me of the Jennies From the Block in my classes last year. Rap and r&b has become one of the most prominent influences among youngsters today, I believe. Where I grew up on Nirvana and grunge (the clothes! oh! my! friggin! god!), these kids dress like in the music videos played constantly on some local variant of MTV (Jim or mcm or tmf or whatever); they can dance like they dance in the videos; they even act the way the butt shaking, jewelry blinging actresses and actors of the videos do. It's not only the girls. Boys wear their baggy trousers and SeanJohn-sweaters with enough machismo to make Puff "What the Hell is his Name Again" Daddy look proud. We're lightyears removed from my baggy black t-shirts and black trousers. (Or we can just say we're ten years removed from those. Frances isn't as young as she likes to let you believe.)
At first I thought this was a consequence from living in Brussels. Rap and r&b cultures are in the first place linked to big cities. I've grown up in a small town where the most subversive thing you could say was that living in Brussels wasn't that scary or dangerous, where you talk a lot of sex with the boys, but never get to the action, and where you never ever think about strutting yer stuff and showing off. Hometown is indeed a crazy place to grow up. sister_luck's recount has me convinced there is something more going on here than the simple influence of living in the big bad city and growing up quicker than the average small town girl.

Rap culture is indeed the most significant part of youth culture nowadays, but it's only a certain segment of youth that's interested in it. sister_luck writes: "This group of students is in the lower set, i.e. their academic ability is slightly below average." In my experience it were the youngsters in the job-oriented classes that dressed and acted this way, and – something I can't really explain – the 14, 15 and 16 year olds (my third and forth graders) did it more than the two highest groups (16, 17 and 18 year olds). I could see a schism between the two low grades I had and the two highest grades. Somewhere between forth and fifth grade the girls and boys left their copycat behaviour behind and developed their own style. (Somewhere between those grades they usually also leave behind what we call "the monkey years". I say usually, because some people never leave those year behind.)
But not so in the job-oriented classes, where pose sometimes is everything, and strutting yer stuff is just something you do, because their isn't much else, is there? I haven't got a real explanation for it. I only watch and witness and can think of several kids that don't fit the bill. I do believe that youngsters seem to grow up quicker than they did 10 years ago, but they don't. They talk big and think they know stuff, but they don't. Jenny From the Block has taught them to wiggle their asses and smile at the boys, but she hasn't taught them how complicated life, relationships, and just growing up are.