Today's graduation ceremony reminded me of a school assignment given to one of my kids this year. It was a list of questions to ask an employer, establishing a first-hand account of what employers seek in a job candidate. Bravo to the teacher who invented such a wonderful assignment!
The last question was a departure that went something like this: "What can high school teachers do to prepare students to secure good jobs?" At first, I thought this question reflected teachers' willingness to collaborate with employers to develop curriculum, but the question can run deep. There is, of course, a shallow interpretation: "How can I give my favorite students an advantage over my less-favorite students?" or "How can I give my students an advantage over those of other teachers?" But the context of a graduation ceremony reminds us that teachers care about the entire class of 2012, that they understand the future is shared by the entire class.
Asking an employer how high school teachers can aim for every student in the class of 2012 to secure a good job is very deep and bold. The question is no longer about how to give employers what they want in a job candidate, but instead about how to give candidates what they want in a job market. First of all, what are "good" jobs? Second, how is it possible to have a job market that doesn't need some workers to take "bad" jobs? Third, how can teachers empower their students to make this dream a reality?
The idea that teachers should be involved in achieving this dream may see arrogant, but I think it is appropriate. The values taught to the people who currently define jobs did not include any serious sense of responsibility to create a world in which all jobs are good. The people who create jobs today (and thus determine the quality of this huge portion of their fellows' lives) consider it reasonable for there to be undesirable jobs that need to be filled. Behind their protests that it is impossible to create a job with no "bad" aspects, employers don't actually feel any guilt about the disparity between their own jobs and jobs they would never want for themselves (e.g. custodian, button-pusher, call-center operator, etc.). In short, values are the culprit behind the jobs situation, and the only way for all students to get good jobs is for teachers to teach future job creators a different set of values, then wait for a more-enlightened generation to seize power and change the world.
For the class of 2012, this is not welcome news. You might be able to achieve the dream for your children, but it cannot be achieved for yourselves. Worse, achieving the dream requires rejecting the values of your parents; it requires being the bigger (and more courageous) person. In short, your situation is profoundly unfair: in addition to a deficit and climate change, you have inherited anemic moral norms. It may not necessitate a civil war in the military sense, but transforming moral norms requires such a change of power that "civil war" may be an apt name (perhaps an economic or technological civil war?). Of course, you can put off the war for a future generation to fight, like your parents did before you, but then you risk getting caught on the other side--fighting against your own children. That would be a war you could not possibly win.
I am not saying that I and other parents have conspired against you. You have heard us encourage you to dream bigger than we dreamed, and that encouragement was, and continues to be, sincere. But, because we lacked the courage to dream that big ourselves, we are obstacles standing in your way. To do something new, you'll have to discard the old. We are your enemy, not because we want to be against you, but because we lack the courage to be for you. Because we will not muster that courage, our right to control you is forfeit--your fight to take our power is righteous. By inheriting unprecedented crises, you also inherit unprecedented right to punish the generations who left those crises to you.
Congratulations, Class of 2012! It is not fair. It is not what you wanted. But, more than ever, the future belongs to you.
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Post Script:
I feel fortunate that my own dad reads my blog and shares his feedback. He gave me permission to publish his reaction to the second to last paragraph above:
If we [older generations] are indeed the enemy [of younger generations] then WE must change to become friends. We must muster the courage to change. And we have that opportunity and responsibility until they bury us. The young people of today do not want to punish us. They still look to us for leadership and we must provide leadership. WE must constantly reexamine what we are doing and make changes. WE must share the baton with the next generations but we cannot pass it yet – we cannot fully let go. WE still own it (with them) and WE still can make changes.
I think these words deserve to be published. On a technical level, they seem to fly in the face of evidence that progress requires shifting power to new people not yet committed to dogma, and that values differ between generations, despite friendly intentions. I feel guilty that we give citizens with a sixty-year life expectancy no more vote than those with a ten-year life expectancy on decisions about what long-term sacrifices must be made to pay a deficit (and also that the values of the young do not dominate advertising). But, on another level, I must admit that my father's words, better then my own, reflect the love we both have for people in the generation of the class of 2012. It is important for words to be loving as well as true.
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