I think the last line in this article about youth "fight clubs" really summarizes the problem with the modern approach to mass education.
Bernd and other school administrators say most teens, even the ones absorbing the bloodiest beatings, refuse to roll over on fight-club participants for fear of retaliation by ringleaders or gangs involved.The teen beaten into bloody unconsciousness in the Arlington video has not come forward and is still unidentified, Hawthorne says. Grand Prairie police have made no arrests in their case because no one has filed a complaint, Brimmer says.
Citing such secrecy, Bernd says he suspects there are more fight clubs operating under the radar.
"It's almost like the kids have created a completely different world we don't have access to and don't understand."
That's because modern education (for the past ~150 years) has segregated youths into their own subculture based on age rather than keeping them integrated into the real adult world. It used to be that most male children stayed at home until they were old enough to work as an apprentice somewhere and learn a trade. Girls existed in social groups with large age ranges, and eventually got married.
Nowadays we stick kids into artificial structures based on age and a social hierarchy emerges based on appearance and popularity, two attributes which generally have no relationship to success or dominance in the real world. It's no wonder that adults have no concept of what their kids are doing, becuase their kids are living entirely separate lives.
The whole philosophy of modern mass education needs to be rethought and redesigned so that students grow up as integrated members of society who know their place is nearly at the bottom. No high school senior should be able to lord his age over a freshman, because both should recognize that their positions on the social ladder of the real world are equally low. This would be more likely if the freshmen and the seniors interacted with adults who lived in the same social hierarchy.
Megadittos on this one, Mike. The current structure also prevents teenagers from practicing leadership with younger kids.
Worst of all, this isolationism has deeply infected churches, such that fellowship is now divided by SES & age. If you've ever been to a campus group with few adults, you know the infection spreads upward, too.
There's that "doing things that don't need to be done" again. Too many people are employed trying to prevent black eyes and bloody noses amoung children. How are we going to keep the NHL going with this attitude?
The strange thing is that adults DON'T understand it. OTher than the fact that the problem is getting steadily worse, it's been around for a long time.