The Future of Our Youth—Hope or Despair?
As a teacher, when I look at our youth, my feelings move from hope to disappointment and then disappointment to hope. They are intelligent, but mesmerized by technology. They lack basic skills, but believe that they are special. They know what is on Facebook, but have little interest in the abstract ideas and deeper questions of life. They are bright, but do not understand that hard work is as important as intelligence. They want to leap and have unique ideas, but are too distracted to turn their ideas into reality. A colleague of mine said that all generations are like this until … until one day life dawns on them and forces them to be pragmatic. I am not so sure about that. Just fifty years back the world was different and so was the generation that breathed in that environment. We did not have cell phones, and the internet was not part of our basic needs. Jobs were ample (at least in the Western world) and a bachelor’s degree was more than enough to m