Real life

I have a lot of various thoughts running through my head that I think are related, let's see if I can combine them all into something coherent. I actually have no idea if I can.  To begin, a brief outline of my differences trains of thought.

First, J. and I often discuss learning and education. That's not surprising since he works in a college and I homeschool and read educational theory for fun. He mentioned that some college students, those who were in high school during Covid in particular, seem to be struggling more than previous students. 

Then there was the conversation where I kvetched that with the prevalence of only online textbooks these days, there would be no way I would ever have been successful. I know myself well enough to know I cannot learn from text on a screen. I find it difficult to focus, sustain concentration, and to remember things. This is a telling because with a print book, I can succeed at a very high level. I did extremely well in school. 

Next up is the pervasive panic from parents of high school students applying to college. While parents have always been concerned about the future of the nearly adult children, the all out panic I see about their child getting into a university and the crazy amounts parents are paying to consultants to make sure this happens seems a little over the top, and not healthy for anyone... well except for the consultant's checking account. 

Finally, is the general difficulties parents and their teens seem to be having. I have never written about living with adolescents as I have the last several months. It's as if adults have forgotten what it was like to be that age and are thus blindsided by its goofiness while at the same time the youth are collectively drowning in fear, which tends to come out in either unappealing behavior or depression and anxiety or even all three. 

All a little different, but I think these threads are all very much related. In general, though, there is something very wrong with how we are raising and teaching our adolescents. 

You want to know if I see is the common error behind all these things? Screens. I know, as a self-proclaimed Luddite, it could be that I am a little too eager to blame technology. But it is not all technology I'm objecting to here, but the way we are educating our children. Virtual learning is not good for them and I can see its influence in all these different issues. 

Having raised a few children to adulthood as well as being their primary educator, I have noticed a few things. Adolescents want to do things. They want to feel capable. They want to have purpose. And they want what they do to matter. Plus, with their growing and increasingly capable bodies, they need to use them. To get used to where their arms abd legs are, to understand the power of their growing muscles, to get to know themselves again. 

And what do we give them? Hours of staring at a virtual lesson on a screen. Subjects that are disconnected from the real world and from other subjects. Mountains of homework, to be done in screens, when they should be having free time. 

Now some of this I have been railing against for years, but the virtual learning aspect is new... and, in my humble opinion, toxic. We can start with the studies that show children learn better with actual books. But many students don't have physical books anymore. I'll say it again, I would have struggled mightily in school if my only source for content was online. 

Then there is the disconnect between the physical world and the virtual one. Remember my story from a while back about H. not being able to read the word 'marble' because she had no experience with them? And even me telling her what a marble was didn't help. It took her playing with real marbles, physically manipulating them, for her to truly understand what a marble was. She never had difficulty reading the word again. We are cutting our children off. We are disconnecting them from their world. With disconnection comes lack of meaning and understanding. 

Our children also don't have very much room to fail. Instead of education being relational, it is more outcome based than ever before. There is more testing, more standardization, and because a computer isn't a person, not a lot of understanding for a student's unique individuality. You either make the grade or you don't. Failing is cause for panic instead of seeing it as an opportunity for better understanding. 

And if you fail at school, then it must follow you will fail at life. Enter fear. Fear for the parents, fear for the children, just fear all over the place. And no one is at their best when they are afraid. It's not surprising to me that parents and teens are having so many relational challenges. Everyone is running scared because of an educational system that is not humane and treats knowledge and its dissemination as a limited commodity without which means a life of living in the basement of your parent's house. 

But these are the years where adolescents needs to try things.; to experience failure; to figure out who they are. We need to stop seeing this age as a make it or break it time. Because the truth is, it doesn't really matter where you do your undergraduate studies. There are enough good colleges out there for everyone who wants to go. Your life isn't over if you put off college until later. Your life isn't over if you didn't go to college. There are many, many people who are not working in the field they received their bachelor's degree in. 

The world is bigger and more exciting and interesting than the world we are currently offering up to our children. And frankly, the world is more beautiful and peaceful than we adults are aware of much of the time because we, too, have substituted real life for the fake life of social media and social media influencers. 

Live a real life. Let your children live a real life. And I will try very hard to do the same.