While we're all here at the start, please allow me to just get this focal talking point out of the way first:
Kids today get nowhere near the credit they deserve. You might even say they get no respect, and this would be the point in my talk where the late Rodney Dangerfield would straighten his tie.
Now, I can already hear what some of you may be saying in reaction to such a statement.
"But Derek, all kids do today is whine about this or that with their thin skins, or they blame societal issues on the generations before them, or they're distracted from everyday life by peering downward on their precious phones, or they're putting avocado on everything!!!"
Yes, that can be very true, but I would argue with this: are you actually talking about kids, or are you talking about 20-somethings...? Because there IS a difference, folks. People in their 20's aren't still walking the halls and sitting in the classrooms of your local high school. I'm talking KIDS; young people with the word 'teen' tacked onto their age who perhaps don't have their driver's license yet, or maybe they just got it. (If so, congratulations, kid! See you out on the road.)
No, I'm talking about the youngest generations who are still learning about the world they live in and the society of which they'll be a functioning part of when they graduate. And while they're young in age, sometimes these kids are capable of showing us adults that they're incredible thinkers with a litany of world knowledge and empathy.
For example, let me talk to you about a visit to a local school that I had at the start of this week.
On Monday morning, I was invited out to LCBI High School after English teacher Rick Delainey notified our office about a unique presentation that his Grade 12 ELA A30 class was going to show. I was very interested, as I've cruised out to LCBI to see what incredible works that Rick and his students have created in the past, and this time was certainly no different.
It was a focus on the atrocities that were committed and the perhaps irreparable damage that was done as a result of the residential schools system in our country. It included everything from striking visuals to poignant music, and it really drove the point home about some of Canada's darkest moments in history. Chalk drawings of a First Nations child having his hair forcibly cut while others looked on; a railway track lined up down the school hallway that helped depict the environment that escapees found themselves in if they managed to slip through the cracks and leave their surroundings. Video and musical elements also helped bring the message home, but perhaps there was nothing more powerful than the sheer fact that it was Christian schools - much like LCBI - that committed such acts against First Nations people, namely their youth. Rick even made that fact well known.
On the other side of the fence over at Outlook High School, there was an event held last Thursday that I kind of wish was around when I myself was a student at the 'Home of the Blues'.
It was called 'Game of Life: Reality Check', and it involved senior students in Grades 11 and 12 who were each given a certain budget to work with and visited a number of stations in the gym, where business professionals from around town talked to them about the costs of this or that in what will eventually be their everyday adult lives. Things like rent, utilities groceries, vehicles, housing, as well as those out-of-nowhere costs that can pop up such as something breaking down and needing replaced.
I thought this game was pretty cool, and I couldn't help but think that students from my generation could've really used something like that. The OHS Class of 2004 were some of the last kids to go through school without the use of smartphones and at-your-fingertips internet technology, so this kind of ground level 'This is what life will look like' education stirred up a little bit of envy. All the same, it's great to see kids being taught the kind of things that will help prepare them for everyday life once they've graduated and their future is whatever they want it to be.
In my role as a journalist and photographer, I'm given access to some pretty cool things in our community, and I always enjoy being a witness to what's going on in our classrooms today. LCBI students always find a way to think outside the box and really open peoples' eyes with what they come up with, and I admired the way OHS students tackled everyday life with their event. These generations are going to be just fine, everybody.
My thanks to Rick and the ELA A30 class for having me at LCBI, as well as the staff and students at OHS for having me stop by.
I said it above, but I'll willingly repeat myself: Kids today get nowhere near the credit they deserve for being outside-the-box, creative, and empathetic thinkers who have more knowledge in their minds than most people even realize.
For this week, that's been the Ruttle Report.
