Teachers should encourage young people to believe in the future, writes Alice Dominguez on EdSurge. The Doomer Generation needs a sense of hope, not more negativity, she writes. If students are cynical and afraid, teachers should "shine a light on students’ paths forward."
She also suggests telling kids that it's up to them to "save the world" puts an unfair burden on them.
Dominguez teaches English and yoga and mindfulness at a Catholic high school near San Diego.
“I’m tired of living through history,” one of her students said.
We said that in my day: The Vietnam War, race riots, Watergate . . . We had history back in ancient history too. (That said, we didn't have school shootings or school closures.)
At a school in Kiev, Ukrainian students try to learn despite blackouts and hours in the school bomb shelter, reports Megan Specia in the New York Times. Teachers use the flashlights on their phones to teach when the power is out. Older students learn first aid.
Jordan Peterson gives a passionate plea for "educators" to stop their missions to "demoralize the youth". It's nothing new, in the late '70s we were all going to freeze in the coming Ice Age and/or Reagan was going to kill us all in an nuclear war. Of course, that mostly came from the media, the teachers just taught. The hippie activist teacher was a few years off I suppose.
https://youtu.be/DcA5TotAkhs?t=3666
Dystopianism took over US culture in the 1960's and 1970's (just look at the movies and books), displacing the post-war upbeat view of the future. Dystopianism turned out to be much more profitable and now the news cycle is almost 100% doom and gloom. Progress.
By the way, the worst school mass murder in US history happened in 1927, in Michigan. A man used dynamite to blow up the school and then himself. There are nuts in every age of history.
Doesn't this contradict the idea that more students should be given failing grades? One cannot have it both ways. How does anyone failing classes have a path forward?