"The Kids Are All right"

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up daintiesat the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."

A great principal that I had used this quote all the time. He is a youth advocate and in his new role of Human resources cooridnator for my school district, ensures that all of his actions are done with kids in mind. He used this quote to point out to teachers that the negative opinion of youth is centuries old....the quote above is attributed to Socrates!

A peeve I have is that many of my colleagues continue to talk of the current generation in increasingly negative terms. They claim that kids today have no respect, can't read or write and are addicted to silly activities like texting and gaming. They claim that students today don't want to work at all.
 
In my work as a school improvement agent (I made that title up) I am advocating that classrooms are places in which learning is encouraged and EXPECTED and can happen. If we continue to have negative beliefs about our students we are prejudiced and doomed to re-create an educational system mired in mud. Techniques and practices of teaching and also grading need to be changed. Students today are different...they demand more of the educational system than my generation did!
 
My alma mater is University of Lethbridge and I am proud to say it is a great school. One of it's luminaries is Dr. Reginald Bibby who is a reknowned and famous sociologist. His work is very important for teachers to read. His current release puts many myth of youth today out the window. He points out that many people, "don't want to be confused by facts". I think he is right. These facts point to the current generation as being bright, balanced and articulate. This is also the same message that Don Tapscott comments on consistently.
 
As Dr. Bibby says, "To quote a famous baby boomer lyric: the kids are all right" Now, can we stop worrying about the kids so much and worry more about our actions in schools?