Problem Children

The youth in our communities are one of the most useful scapegoats for societies ills. It is not youth that creates most crime, control most wealth, make the law, start wars (only fight them), control corporations, empower politicians, control television, education and public relations firms. Youth do not generate billion pound industries, third world misery, fashion empires, arms manufacturing, penal law, property ownership, land ownership, wage and rent structures or tax laws.

The less fortunate youth of today are used in the same way as terrorist threats, weapons of mass destruction, immigration, drugs, crime statistics, home office reports, to create a climate of fear.The fear starts being induced at school and is driven by curriculum. From both ends of the class divide.

On the one hand the dispossessed, the failures who didn’t get the marks that would set he or she on the road to a brilliant career and. And on the other the privileged or classic performer who will go places if they show academic and value flexibility in the system that

employs them. The privileged youth leaves home full of piano lessons, summer camps, drama confidence and creativity and the youth from a poorer background leaves home believing slavery is the only way out of her dilemma.

The former who can play piano forte and has heard of king Lear and can be useless when it comes performing menial tasks and understanding the integration of the useful with the creative possess. The latter’s creativity lies dormant and locked away by an education system that rewards privilege and conformity creating a climate of uselessness.

The modernized poverty caused by the dislocation of purpose and community. You often hear the expression “You know what kids ar like”. My question is. Do we? When they spend most of their childhood locked away from community influence. The white man schools his children for only a few hours a day while separating them by age group. They are isolated from their parents, grandparents, uncles,aunts brothers, and sisters – isolated from the entire community for twelve years. That can lead to adults with a very narrow understanding of what community life is all about. Indigenous peoples around the world know a better way – immerse the child in the community, let the community be the teacher.
Russell Means

How do we teach our kids to be creative and useful individuals. How do we encourage them to feel a Sense of place and value to society? No one knows all the answers, but most of us are aware of some of the problems. One of them is hearing what they have to say, what they have to offer to the debate. Stop treating young people as an outcast culture that serves only to feed commercial interests and the debilitating culture of style. Most kids like grownups want to know where they belong and that they are valued, heard and matter. And parents need to remember. You can’t rely on school to bring up your children