Kids of Tomorrow ... I Hope

I get comfortable, no doubt. I like my daily routine. But, then time does this all of a sudden thing and takes on jet propulsion and I’m suddenly transported into a new dawn. I like that, actually. I’m not afraid of change. I endorse change. However, there is always a period of adjustment and that can be both enlightening and frightening.

I watch my parents struggle with changing technology. I don't want to be them. I fear that frustration. So, I keep up with the now. Constantly. I think. I hope.

This is a simple concept really. And I’m sure to be slapped upside the forehead like the V-8 commercials, but this time thing continues to escape me and I hate the catch up mode. I’m not at the forefront, obviously. But it occurs to me, and illustrated rather simply, that by the time one finishes high school there is a completely different world out there.

My example ... I was talking today with a recent high school graduate who is a month away from embarking on his freshman year of college. He is the son of a co-worker and I’ve been asked to provide him with enough work to keep him busy through mid-September. In other words, I’m providing busy work so that he has some college spending money (aka, beer money). I relish that idea. He is my data base flunke and learning a whole new computer system in just a few weeks.

However, in our daily conversations it has occurred to me that today’s high school seniors were born prior to the internet. Now they master it. How mainstream has the internet and email become in our lives now? Come to think of it, wireless technology didn’t even exist when he was born. And I’m not sure I could deal with being chained to an outlet with my laptop at all. Cell phones, then, looked like walkie-talkies because they weren’t of the digital variety yet. Now, I can hold the world in my pocket.

Consider all the political changes since 1991 (which was yesterday, am I right?). Music was just becoming mainstream on CDs and leaving vinyl in the dust heap. Now we have MP3s. HD tvs on flat screen have just come about in the last quarter of their lives. Etcetera, etcetera, etc. And I think things are gaining speed exponentially, not just in a nice upward bar chart curve in a power-point presentation (and when are those going away?).

My point is meant to be simple, actually. None of us live in the world in which we were born. I’m not saying run out and endorse the 8-Track and Beta Video tapes of today. But, we shouldn’t raise our kids to think in the now. Technology is getting faster, again exponentially in form. They need to be educated in critical thinking. Math is good. That, thank goodness, is still a constant (for now). Music, or the arts in general, is essential. Creative thinking is today’s martial arts.

The concepts of tomorrow are no doubt complex. If, as a parent, I wait for the schools to catch up, it simply is not the education they require to succeed. So … I encourage to obtuse. Think differently. Artistically. Encourage the out of the box. Because. If I parent for today’s world, they might not be prepared for tomorrow.