Where did we go wrong?

A long long time ago, a much younger Hive account@bozz was going to university to one day become a teacher. After a couple of semesters, I started thinking about it a bit more and I realized there was a good chance that one day I would likely "burn out" if I took that route.

I fell back to my longtime passion computers, and eventually I found myself working as the CIO for a public school district. It would seem I ended up getting the best of both worlds right? Along the road, I met my wife Hive account@mrsbozz who works in the same district as a school social worker.

I'll be the first to admit that her job is much harder than mine. Sure, a server or switch might go down here or there, Internet can be a bit flakey at times, or kids find a way to look at porn. For the most part though, my job just isn't that difficult. At least I don't find it so. That doesn't mean I am not challenged in my career, but that is actually not the point of this post.

I've been following Hive account@tarazkp on HIVE for a while now. He writes some pretty introspective stuff and with a few small exceptions, I tend to agree with pretty much everything he writes. Lately, we have had some brief discussions about kids these days and given the direction things are heading, what the future might hold for them.

In my years working in education, I've started to realize that there is a whole generation of students that we seem to have failed. Here's an example from my wife. She's seen pretty much everything anymore and she has some stories that would blow your mind.

She was telling me the other day about how a teacher had sent home a small reading book for the students to go through at home. This is first grade level, so nothing hard, nothing long, just a little five page booklet or so that the teacher stapled together (probably on their weekend), and sent home.

Believe it or not, not one, but two parents called the school to express their displeasure about this booklet coming home. It wasn't the content of the book, it wasn't even the length of the book, it was the fact that they even sent it home in the first place.

This isn't a direct quote, but the parents reasoning went something like this:

When the kids are home that is family time, it's not my job to teach them, that is why we pay you.

Really? It's not your job to teach your kids? It's just your job to have fun with them I would imagine. It's just your job to never say no to them, to never allow them to suffer adversity or be challenged by hard problems or concepts.

I remember back when I was in school, homework was pretty much a staple. Pretty much every night there were math problems to work out, spelling words to memorize, or chapters to be read in a book. Then if you happened to go to university, I remember them saying something like for every one hour you spend in lecture you will be spending two hours doing work at home.

That's not the case anymore (at least at the elementary level). In fact, it's quite rare that any homework is ever sent home in the building where my wife works. Why? Because they know it will never get done, so what's the point. Parents don't want to parent. Rather than holding child accountable, it's much easier to hold the school accountable.

Heck, post something on social media and you will likely have a whole army of people ready to help you burn the building down. How dare they make my child use their brain! How dare they imply that I should have any hand in raising my kid into a respectable adult!

The sad thing is, I don't really blame the kids at this point. Hive account@mrsbozz has always said if she could fix the parents, she wouldn't have a job.

Another thing that Hive account@mrsbozz always points out to me is that trauma is generational. I think it could be argued that apathy, lack of ambition, and feeling like the eternal victim is generational as well. Somewhere along the line, the earlier generation offended the younger generation to the point that they feel the need to correct those "violations" with their own children.

The problem with that is... Well, just re-read the post if you didn't see the problem the first time.

Most of us are doing the best we can here people. If you could just give us a little help, it would be greatly appreciated! I don't know what the fix is, but if you aren't seriously worried about where this is all heading, you might want to open your eyes!