Our Kids Are Ready To Handle The Future – We Just Have To Let Them Have It.

Guest post from my friend Seth Clifford, who can follow on Twitter.

As an educator, I take it upon myself to try and impart children with knowledge; to feed their brains with as much as I possibly can for the short time I have them in my class. I’m good at it, and I enjoy my job immensely, which means that they, in turn, enjoy my class. It doesn’t hurt that I teach computers, which happens to be a great source of fun and intrigue for them, as technology dominates the landscape of our world, and will only continue to do so in the future.

But there’s another side to being in charge of young minds, and it’s something a lot of us – even other educators – don’t always grasp. We have to be the examples of not just how to succeed at academics or work, how to win – but how to live with each other, and with our environment; how to strike a more perfect balance with what surrounds us and affords us the fragile lives we have. We need to teach children how to be better people – better humans – and not just how to reach the top.

It is for this reason that I began talking to my students in the 7th grade about electronic waste and the impact that it has on our world. We all know about that, so I won’t reiterate those lessons here. The lesson I try to teach my students is not as specific as that particular topic, though. I try to teach my students about choices, consequences, and the path they decide to take through their lives. You might be thinking, “Well, isn’t that a bit much for middle school kids to comprehend?” and the answer is no.

Physiologically speaking, their bodies are growing at exponential rates at this age. Couple with this a hunger for knowledge that is still young and curious enough not to be jaded, yet advanced enough to understand abstract concepts and how they affect the world around them, and you get a captive audience, and one whose understanding of a world outside of text messages and their group of friends is only just dawning.

We need to show these children – and I say that with all due respect and deference, since we can’t expect them to solve our problems yet – a better way to live than we’ve seen in the past. I remember when I was young, litter was a big problem. Woodsy the Owl told me not to throw trash on the ground, so I didn’t. I remembered that, and it stayed with me, because it made sense to keep Earth clean. And lately, it’s suddenly very cool to “go green”. “Green is the new black“, after all, no? Well, ordinarily, any time people become more aware of their environmental impact, it’s a good thing, except if they think it’s not cool anymore to do so, and move on to something else, forgetting the reasons why they started in the first place. Which is why we need this next group of thinkers to understand – implicitly – that this is an ongoing process, and one that they can directly affect and improve. We need them to know that after everyone stops talking about it, the problem is still going to be there.

At that age, you can’t drive, you can’t see R-rated movies, and your world extends only as far as your parents allow. Kids need to feel important – they want to rise to the occasion, and we need to give them opportunities to do so. I’ve seen it firsthand, when they make a connection between their own lives and the lives of Chinese children, stricken with poverty, forced to work in Guiyu e-waste facilities, being poisoned with every breath. My kids look at their ubiquitous cell phones and iPods very differently these days, because they know there is a hidden price to pay for all of this cool stuff. And it’s on that personal level that they need to feel it. They know more about this than their parents at this point, in many cases, and that’s okay. They will be the problem solvers – they will be the architects of our future, not their parents. We need to understand this, and we need to enable them to do so. Apathy has done nothing for me in my life, and having learned that lesson, I’m all too willing to share it with a young mind, to save them the wasted time, and give them a chance to do things differently.

I work in technology, and have a lifelong fascination with gadgets and computers. It’s been there since I was a child myself, and it’s not going away. It’s how I plan to support my family in the future. But I make sure that I don’t miss a chance to make a connection with that future by sharing the goal of responsible decision-making, good choices, and positive actions with a child today.

You may also like:

1. Set An Example Of Planetary Stewardship For Your Kids.
2. Teach Your Kids To Go Green.
3. Lessons For Children And Families Going Green.
4. What Is Schooling For?
5. Massachusetts College Students Sleep-Out For Their Future.

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