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GENERATION ask whY By
Ted Archer
You need to get a good job. Why?. You should not do that. Why?. This is how things are. Why?.
Sound familiar to you. Well it has certainly been the soundtrack to my life. Why are those the cool kids?. Why should I tolerate this?. Why did I drink so damned much and why do I taste chocolate milk?. As a member of the infamous generation y, I am questioner. It is this very nature, that is responsible for the friction I’ve experienced with my elders.
When I was in Primary School, I used to get into a lot of trouble. Mostly due to my ability to be talked into doing stupid things. This in turn led to me being placed in the ‘isolation room’. To paint you a proper picture I should explain the isolation room. It was a classroom that the teachers would put a student in for misbehaving.
It was meant to make the student reflect on their actions. However, it did not work on me. While I was stuck in isolation doing a remarkable imitation of Steve McQueen from The Great Escape. Sitting in my own private cooler. I reflected less upon my actions and more upon my punishment. To my young mind it was stupid.
I didn’t feel bad from my punishment at all. Why, because I could rationalise my behaviour and when you feel justified then you have no guilt. Joey hit a girl so I gave him a slap up the side of the head. This level of rationalising was occurring in year two and continued on to today.
That is just what it is like to be part of generation y. You question things that should be static.
“Respect your Elders”. Why should our elders deserve instant respect simply due to being old. That is just a little too ageist for this little egalitarian Ted. While we should all seek to be polite and civil to our elders, however, I do not agree to automatically having to respect them.
What if they do not deserve to be respected?. For example should I respect a man that beats his wife, drinks too much and is a shitty parent simply because he happens to have spent more time on the planet than me?. It is the kind of irrational thinking that Generation ask Y will not follow. We say you give respect you get respect. Naturally, this is not always the case. Every generation has douche bags. But generalising an entire generation based on the few is not simply unjust. It is down right disrespectful.
After all Generation Y would be labelled unjust if they did the same thing.
“Kids today aren’t being given a good education, back to the three R’s I say”-Old Guy 3:16.
This is another load of trash that, should be questioned. Sarcastically I would ask tongue in cheek how it is called the three R’s when there is only one, reading. But this is merely youthful cheekiness.
More seriously I would comment that a return to the three R’s would merely be a return to rote learning.
Sitting in class en mass chanting, two times two is four, three times two is six and so forth. It is trash, from an educational standpoint it represents the lowest form of intellect.
Instead kids today are taught how to interpret text and images. Why?. So they can dissect texts and advertisements. So they can assess the validity and value of a text. They are taught these skills so they can be constructive members of society. So, if we teach our students that it is a good thing to question. It should be expected they will begin to question everything.
I feel safe commenting on current education and its aims as. A) I only graduated from High School in 2005, and, B) I’ve spent the last two and a half years studying a teaching degree at the University of Newcastle. So, I have experience of the Education system from both sides.
“Kids today have it so easy”
Again, it is question time. Let us just think about the prior statement for a moment. I ask my generation do we have it easy?. I am not stupid enough to say we do not have it easy in some respects. However, generation Y faces different stresses to previous generations. HSC’s, UAI’s and STI’s are all common to generation Y. On top of these we still have to deal with all the regular dramas of growing up. We also have to grow up in a radically different society.
The fact that youth suicide is far higher is clear proof of the difference in society and pressures on youth.
Also the cost of living is far higher now than it was in days gone by. So high in fact you are only as lucky as your pay packet can afford. With youth forced to at school for approximately, eight hours then find time for a part time job and a social life.
Let us skip forward to when these kids grow up and want a house, the Australian dream.
A basic two bedroom shack in the ghetto will set buyers back one hundred and ten to one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. While a nicer home in a good area can have its owner paying it off for the rest of their life.
By the way did you know that first homeowner’s grant is being stopped. Well not that it really mattered as it led to an increase in housing prices anyway.
However, back in the good old days the Aussie Dream would only cost a person a year’s salary.
Also, I would like to point out that the youth of today is placed under far higher scrutiny. Simply to gain a licence we must have our L’s then two separate P plates, we must not drive car’s over a certain engine size. We must only travel at set speeds, often leading to older drivers tail gating us and should we speed up then we’re the hoons.
More personally I can also point out that when I graduate I will be working under people that did not have to pay for their teaching degree let alone sit the HSC or gain a UAI. Unlike myself who not only sat the HSC and needed a UAI, but I will also leave University with a debt of more than twelve thousand dollars.
Again I ask do kids have it easy today?. In some areas I do not believe so.
I do not say these things out of bitterness. I merely ask that as the times change people’s knowledge and thinking should too.
I wish that the Baby boomers and even their predecessors take a moment from shaking their fingers in condemnation and ask a few questions.
Why is the youth so angry?.
Why is there such high rates of depression and suicide?.
Why is the HSC such a stressful time?
To my fellow generation Y. I ask you to continue to question everything. To learn all you can for knowledge truly is power. To, never see knowledge as static. The world is an ever-changing place and we must change with it.
As Bruce Lee once said, “be like water”. Adapt. You must adapt to suit the environment in which you live. The environment is more than the physical it is the social and cultural environment too. It is the resistance to change of the older generations and the willingness to change of the younger that leads to most of the friction. So, my advice is to adapt. To be like water.
Although I may sound bitter and jaded know that I am not. However, after working with older generations for over three years I felt the need the need to write down objections I make constantly in life. I ask not to be pitied but instead to be understood.
Finally I ask my generation to remain generation. Generation ask whY. |
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