In this post, I want to take a look at the interests of the youth today and what the authorities and those who should shape it are doing.
The responsibility for who will educate today's youth is shifting from where the parents, schools, and the community once contributed an equal share to the teaching of our youth has shifted to destroctive attacks on all fronts. To today's child may only have one parent, class sizes in school may be too large for individual attention, and the community may be stretched beyond its ability to provide assistance by outside forces such as gang violence or a struggling economy.
After school programs, project camps, and non-traditional projects provided by churches and educators can and do take up the slack left by this possible void in educational opportunities for youth where they exist. These have to be tailored by the adult society to be attractive but clean.
As a matter of course, if we wish to uncover the roots of despair and violence that lurk in the hearts of young people, we must understand their subculture -- their music, clothing, games, their friendships, rivalries and relationships. Only then do we have a chance of helping them develop, not just academically, but emotionally and morally. But so much of what adolescents do seems enigmatic. Why, for example, do they wear their baseball caps on backwards, dress in grunge or goth clothing, pierce their skin, apply tattoos, take drugs, attend concerts by sexually perverse rock stars and mash dance? All of these interests have profound symbolic meaning, of which young people themselves are unaware.
The language of symbols, myths, fairy tales, and dreams is what they use and so applies to understanding the present generation of young people. Uncovering the symbolic ground of these desires, conflicts, and anxieties, will allow them to be free of them. No knowledge could be more therapeutic, nor of greater practical value. It will be of immense value to parents & educators alike or what do you think?.
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