Learning To Disintegrate

So, I am debased to the point of of using FaceBookShit for blogging. It is the filth, that is humanity…

 

It was a FB post by someone I respect, that talked about the lack of respect by the Kids these Days…

I demurred…

I have to say, Melissa, that I disagree. Our son came up through MPS schools, (not to mention North Shore TKD) and learned respect and thinking at Fratney, Lincoln, and Rufus King. I have worked with the Rieselbachs in teaching martial arts students from the earliest ages, and they are a delight. Willing, eager, and happy to learn respect and skills. I have worked at Riverside with the Robotics team, and have demonstrated the tactics of negotiation and working through practical engineering problems with creativity and determination. Nobody is ever handed an award just for showing up. But the kids who do show up, they are rewarded with amazing opportunities and skills and knowledge. And they love it. I have to say, that the kids I have worked with in all these situations are amazing and delightful. They do indeed, learn independence and problem solving. I might agree that the schools do them a disservice, but mainly because I believe the recent focus on high-stakes testing at the expense of actual teaching time has dealt a huge blow to the ability of teachers to relay these ideas. And further, I believe that the Republican Legislature’s demolition of the teacher’s unions makes it even worse, as the qualified teachers leave the profession. I realize, of course, that I am disagreeing with one of my instructors here…

And it was not so much.

I don’t disagree with any of that. Where I disagree is the idea that this has created the problems that we face in our country. I feel that it is much more to be laid at the feet of corporations who pollute our environment and then send our jobs overseas, politicians who give these corporations tax breaks for doing so as well as monetary benefits to the wealthy and the financial sector while ignoring the needs of our infrastructure and the people who actually live in this country. Political parties who want to respond to every single event by bombing and invading other countries, while ignoring the needs of the military people who do that actual work. People who want to blame teachers for the problems in schools that were created by the dictates of those original people. Politicians who want to be obsequious to the extraction industry by lying about the real threat dude to global warming. In the face of all that, a little disrespect from teens (which has been noted in the writings of old people since writing was invented) seems to me to be not the prime mover in these issues. [/soapbox]

It would have been stupid zombi yammering, except for the intercession of a certain Young Zombie:

My generation:
Uses drugs less than any previous generation
Exercises more than any the previous generation
Has better math and writing skills
Less crimes than previous generations
Fewer hate comments recorded
Fights less

And yet every time I hear people talking about my generation, it’s with disdain. It’s actually because of a phenomenon called “Juvenoia.” I think the single biggest difference between generations is that the stupid shit you say and/or do as an angsty teen™ is recorded now, so people are more aware of it.

I am almost certain Young Zombie, for all his intelligence, has never really heard this song:

hat I think, is that if you spend any real time with kids you come to respect them and love them.  Doesn’t matter of their heritage or home condition.  Small humans are lovely and amazing and if you have the opportunity, affecting them at those early ages is a precious thing.  And while sometimes, the parents are unable or unwilling to support that work; all you can do is to be an example that they may never have seen.,

I know this is a thing; a couple of people in the Robotics team have gone on to do college in Nursing and Engineering, who didn’t think that way.

It makes me warm and it makes me think of the music of this new punk band:

 

At the end of the day, my biggest argument on the FaceHell, was not in a serious love, but was, boiled down, to the problems faced by our country and society.  And my opponent felt that the basic problem involved how we raised kids.

On the other tentacle, I feel that our biggest problems are elsewhere:

don’t disagree with any of that. Where I disagree is the idea that this has created the problems that we face in our country. I feel that it is much more to be laid at the feet of corporations who pollute our environment and then send our jobs overseas, politicians who give these corporations tax breaks for doing so as well as monetary benefits to the wealthy and the financial sector while ignoring the needs of our infrastructure and the people who actually live in this country. Political parties who want to respond to every single event by bombing and invading other countries, while ignoring the needs of the military people who do that actual work. People who want to blame teachers for the problems in schools that were created by the dictates of those original people. Politicians who want to be obsequious to the extraction industry by lying about the real threat dude to global warming. In the face of all that, a little disrespect from teens (which has been noted in the writings of old people since writing was invented) seems to me to be not the prime mover in these issues. [/soapbox]

Bad zombie is being bad…