“In a democracy, we each have more power to speak up and to connect than we imagine. But most people don’t publish their best work or seek to organize people who care. Most of the time, it’s far easier to avert our eyes or blame the system or the tech or the dominant power structure.”
Unfortunately, I see a lot of young people feeling apathetic about their current situations. They feel they have no choices and feel helpless.
I feel that we are teaching our students to feel this way. We don’t give them choices about what they study. We tell them what to study, when to study and how to study. We expect everyone to conform to the same expectations and we expect the same results. We are trying to teach a new generation with old school ways. Just because things worked in the past doesn’t mean that they will work in the present or the future.
We don’t allow for enough individual differences or learning styles. We don’t allow for enough choices. We don’t allow for enough creativity. We don’t allow for enough critical thinking because we aren’t sure that we really want them to question the status quo.
Without these freedoms, our students are leaving school before graduating or graduating and not doing much with their own lives. When they feel helpless, they have no ambition or desire to better the world. They sit back and expect us to solve all of their problems because that is what they experienced in school.
We are making them into these apathetic creatures. Unless we change our ways, we can’t expect them to behave any differently.
How do you suggest we change our ways? Please share.
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