I had a brief conversation with a neighbor today about how schools are not adequately preparing students for the real world, and one of the subjects that I feel needs special attention is soft people skills. In the past, it was expected that these would be naturally cultivated through interactions at school with peers and from inputs of the faculty and staff. In our current generation, that is not the case.
As the number of students per faculty/staff member continues to rise, the opportunity to correct and inform and even role model proper adult communication for developing generations is diminishing with each school year. Students are looking to their peers for guidance, where bullying is prevalent and there is no longer self-regulation amongst the adolescent population as the pack mentality takes over.
Expecting children to learn how to communicate with one another when there is no great form of stability in the majority of public schooling systems as previous generations had, leaves them looking to the adults in their lives for answers, answers that they aren’t getting, which itself becomes an answer. Children are being taught that they can only rely on themselves, and the bonds of interdependence that are meant to be forged from a young age are slipping through the cracks as more students seek answers, yet receive no response.
The obvious solution is to alter the curriculum to teach young people how to effectively communicate what bothers them, how to speak up for themselves, when to hold their opinion and let someone else finish. Very basic communication skills that many people take for granted from using it so naturally BECAUSE we had the opportunities to develop the skills in school, are no longer evident in youth.
Children have diminishing positive outlets for frustrations and hardships, and these things lead to mental health issues down the road, much of which could be prevented with simple classes on how to treat others, and how to be assertive. It is no longer a matter of simply should we start to teach children how to be adults, but we must teach them or the fate of all generations will be in the hands of maladapted adults that don’t have a clear picture of what a safe world looks or feels like.
Decisions made out of fear are not logical; they are reactions based on instincts which develop at a young age. We need not a population being led by people acting in fear. We need a population of strong, well informed and humble individuals that consider the needs not just of themselves, but their fellow person.
You might feel that this doesn’t affect you in one way or another, and you are entitled to that opinion, but when you are older and no longer able to be so independent, I’m willing to bet that you want someone that will consider your well-being and treat it with the same value as their own. If we do not make changes now, then we may not have that luxury when our fate is in the hands of another individual.
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