February 2014
People are programmed to seek meaningful things in their lives and ignore that which is extraneous.
I often blog about people in their 20s who do not want to work unless their job is meaningful and makes a difference ... this feeling growing in all ages and stages of life. Young adults look at older generations who are burned out after years of working in the wrong job - often with little to show for it.
Now we take that to children and their homework. It would seem that many students do not want to do their homework unless it's meaningful to them. On some level I totally understand what they're saying. Would you want to spend hours of your day doing something that you're unable to focus on, unable to complete, and is meaningless to you? But just like the generations of the past - students must accomplish certain tasks in order to move forward in life and be considered achievers.
As an educator, currently working on curriculum development, children need to be motivated. To do homework that is meaningless to the lives they will live in the future makes no sense. I remember teaching cursive writing to my students and now it's not going to be used at all. ... DELETE.
We must look at students today to see if they have learning challenges and emotional problems, but school (knowledge) should really be based on their personal development and the needs of the future - which most of us know intuitively. Does the average teen get that reality is a simulation? Some do some don't. The rest know that there is something greater out there than what we have experienced here in the past. Most see technology as the key.
If you had a child in high school or college - would you want them to wind up in the same career you have/had? All you can do is hope for the best - that they will find something that is meaningful and will bring them a good income. Remember that most people are not programmed for long-term success. When people tell me about the business they once owned, how much money they once made, and how it is all gone, blaming any number of people and reasons for the change, they have to realize this is all part of the game. You can blame financial loss on the economy, your divorce, relatives, unscrupulous partners, natural disasters, or anything else - but at the end of the day this was destiny. Fair? Usually not.
Each generation has always said that the younger generations are more psychically gifted. Maybe that's true and maybe that's not - and maybe it's not important at all - but we are becoming aware that meaningless tasks are not where we are supposed to be - the future not part of what we are experiencing today. The education system needs to reflect what's ahead - no matter how long we will be here. If I've learned one thing from students in recent weeks, they get that life is an experience in a simulation - which they see as an illusion.
