Kids Are Actually Engaged
Or How We Need To be More Positive About This Generation!
By Paul Grimsley
I may have edged over the demarcation line that puts me closer to middle age than youth, but I remember well being part of what I now refer to as a test pancake generation when I was coming up through school. It seemed like every new academic test they wanted to try out hit at the point I was going through that particular level of the education system.
It kind of went like this — the system is broken, here’s a way to fix it, teacher learns how to teach it, students have some success, complaints are leveled that it is too easy, and it gets swapped out again — then rinse and repeat. We watched as the goal posts of education were shifted constantly by a job market and a game of political football that saw GCSEs devalued, then A-Levels, and the Bachelor degrees.
You start to criticize the institutes which teach children, and then when you reach a point of apathy when trying to correct institutes that are never allowed to achieve a sense of equilibrium, you end by criticizing and undermining the products of those institutes.
Over the decades you allow money and lobbyists to gain an unprecedented foothold in the political system, and we see the two party system collapse into a muddled mess that represents a Hobson’s Choice, where two candidates backed by a large number of undisclosed special interest groups compete on a media stage beset by lies and mud-flinging, and the bemoan the lack of engagement from the youth, who haven’t yet been worn down by cynicism into believing this is the only option.
Stand up for what you believe in; have integrity; be honest. These values are taught to children, whether by parents, school, or church, or even peer group, it matters not. So peaceful protests take place, and they are met with violence. It might seem safer to disappear into pop culture and leave political activism alone.
But kids aren’t there yet — they have optimism, and they are curious about the world they live in, and they have the internet. So, you know what? They are able to sit in their bedroom and they have the Alexandrian Library in there with them.
I used to go around the country doing craft fairs in the UK, and I have attended a fair number of Book fairs and other events in this country, and you know who ask the most questions? Children. And these aren’t questions with no point — they actually display a knowledge of what they are talking about.
Kids find things interesting. A lot of adults have fallen into the trap of thinking that they know everything, and they are locked up in the diminishing worth of data that slowly slides into irrelevancy.
I am sure some kids fall into the stereotype painted of the millennial, but there are plenty who don’t. Some kids aren’t drugged into oblivion by a system that wants to break them, and then blame them for being broken. Despite everything thrown at them they remain alive, and they really are engaged.
Go and Google what the survivors of the Parkland shooting are doing. Go into a local church and see what the youth groups do for their community. Think about cubs and scouts and the proactive viewpoint they have always taken about caring for people.
We really need to stop focusing on the few negative kids out there, and we need to really promote all of the outstanding kids. You can’t honestly talk about investing in the future and not consider who is going to be living in that future, and who is going to be carrying the torch forward for everyone.
If you find yourself talking disparagingly about this generation, just think about some of the labels they tried to affix to you, and how inaccurate they were, and how hard you tried to pry them off. We owe it to our kids to stop beating up on them and to have their backs. The world we want to create, as a company, and as the individuals in the company, is as much, if not more, for our kids than it is for us.
Let’s celebrate them.
