"You've gotta have hope! Musn't sit around and mope"
You gotta have heart
Damn Yankees
Many times as of late, I have tried to put myself in the shoes young people today. We have all heard the old saying what an elder tells a young person - "You have never been old, but I have been young". That has worked well for years, but I am not sure it works well today. The biggest difference between the youth of yesteryear and the youth of today is hope. When I was young, there was always hope.
I will plead guilty to this crime. It is my generation which has robbed our youth of hope for the future. For that, I feel bad, very bad. Our kids today are a lot of things, but they are not stupid. They watch the news, read the blogs, they even read the paper. They know the economy is in the tank and we lost the ability to properly educate and prepare them for tomorrow. It is no wonder so many have become hedonists or nihilists.
I just read an article about how the enrollment in law schools is declining. Big concern for them, not so much for society. It mentioned one young man who just graduated with his JD and is over $100,000 in student debt. He would have to land a plum job in a Wall Street law firm to take care of that debt in short order. His chances of that - not so good. His story typifies so many young folks just getting out of college. Huge debts, limited employment choices.
Now that the MSM has finally caught on to reporting more of the facts, every month the jobs "created" are mostly part time. Not only part time, but heavily weighted in the service or hospitality sectors. Translation - low pay and low or no benefits. Kids graduate from college deep in debt, looking at a jobs picture which shows little opportunity. What few "good" jobs are posted, are heavily contested.
For those who do not have the means or desire to go to college or trade school, the future is even bleaker. In Minneapolis, graduation from high school is a 50-50 chance at many schools. For students of color, it is less than 50%. Where is their hope for their future? In addition, because we have "dumbed down" graduation standards so much, the ones who do graduate from high school are ill prepared to do much with their degree.
Our kids are our future. They are our "seed corn". We have, and continue to, rob them of what they need more than anything - hope. When I was young, and would occasionally hit a rough patch, I knew things would eventually get better. Why? I had hope for the future. Until we can look our kids in the eye and tell them the truth, and not talking points, they won't have the hope we had when we were growing up.
Damn it, we know what the problems are - fix them! We owe it to our kids to use our knowledge and experience to fix the fixable. Our education is a mess. Period. We know it, our kids know it. Get creative. No more pablum or PC crap. Teach kids what they need to know to succeed in life. Teach them how to be creative in a world economy. Allowing our kids to fail by the hundreds of thousands is insanity!
Hope. We have taken it from our kids. It is up to us to restore hope. Without hope, we really have nothing.
I just read an article about how the enrollment in law schools is declining. Big concern for them, not so much for society. It mentioned one young man who just graduated with his JD and is over $100,000 in student debt. He would have to land a plum job in a Wall Street law firm to take care of that debt in short order. His chances of that - not so good. His story typifies so many young folks just getting out of college. Huge debts, limited employment choices.
Now that the MSM has finally caught on to reporting more of the facts, every month the jobs "created" are mostly part time. Not only part time, but heavily weighted in the service or hospitality sectors. Translation - low pay and low or no benefits. Kids graduate from college deep in debt, looking at a jobs picture which shows little opportunity. What few "good" jobs are posted, are heavily contested.
For those who do not have the means or desire to go to college or trade school, the future is even bleaker. In Minneapolis, graduation from high school is a 50-50 chance at many schools. For students of color, it is less than 50%. Where is their hope for their future? In addition, because we have "dumbed down" graduation standards so much, the ones who do graduate from high school are ill prepared to do much with their degree.
Our kids are our future. They are our "seed corn". We have, and continue to, rob them of what they need more than anything - hope. When I was young, and would occasionally hit a rough patch, I knew things would eventually get better. Why? I had hope for the future. Until we can look our kids in the eye and tell them the truth, and not talking points, they won't have the hope we had when we were growing up.
Damn it, we know what the problems are - fix them! We owe it to our kids to use our knowledge and experience to fix the fixable. Our education is a mess. Period. We know it, our kids know it. Get creative. No more pablum or PC crap. Teach kids what they need to know to succeed in life. Teach them how to be creative in a world economy. Allowing our kids to fail by the hundreds of thousands is insanity!
Hope. We have taken it from our kids. It is up to us to restore hope. Without hope, we really have nothing.
No comments:
Post a Comment