Don't talk to me about kids
Don’t talk to me about kidsI think of myself as pretty tech-savvy, despite knowing that any 11 year old can show me up in a matter of seconds. Unlike most adults my age, I know from personal experience that 11 year olds can do anything. They can program a DVD recorder, they can configure the ADSL modem for any computer, they can create animation characters, they can even write novels. Most parents will agree with me. Most single people in their thirties will scoff, but secretly be terrified. Single people past the age of forty will be in deep denial, believing that the world still belongs to adults.
Alas, they are very mistaken. One colleague of mine left the world of games programming because he was too old at twenty-four. He was competing with thirteen year olds who wanted to stay up all night to finish that last character. Not because a deadline was looming. Not because of fear of losing their job. No, out of the sheer joy of finishing something they love doing. Ado had started regarding his position as a job, not a licence to play, unlike his much younger co-workers.
On another front, a twelve year old girl wrote a script which became a blockbuster, Thirteen. Although the considerations of the characters’ lives were petty and dictated completely by peer pressure, each character was mature and fully fleshed out. Sure, she had help from a thirty year old filmmaker, and a Hollywood studio behind her to foot the bill, but the initial story and the characters were created by her. She touched the heartstrings of women around the world who recognised themselves in these adolescents.
On a more personal note, my next door neighbour, who is eight, Malay and Muslim, plays quite happily with my upstairs neighbour, who is four, white trash and an atheist. Both their parents disapprove of each other’s background, but the kids are oblivious to the differences which divide our nation. It makes you wonder, whether leaving the governing to children wouldn’t turn out better than it is now. The calm, disciplined, eight year old watches over the four year old urchin with a penchant for self-harm with as much care as a real brother.
This is not to say that children are incapable of evil. We have poor little James Bolger as proof that they are. Like all humans, they have both the potential for good and for evil. It is the input they receive from their environment and their parents which will determine whether they turn out to be generous, honest and giving, or selfish.
The crux of the matter is: their potential, not only on moral grounds, but in the fields of learning and working. The ages between zero and twelve are relatively stable emotionally speaking. They represent an optimum period for unlimited learning capacity. After that, the hormones kick in, and boys start thinking of sex and girls start getting crushes.
Children learn through imitation, play and experimenting, not just through rigorous structure or rote. If instead of trying to force them to learn, we entice them, by showing them how fun and interesting a particular subject can be, they will absorb it all faster. In addition, if we isolate their area of interest and support them in their development in that area, we will ensure that they end up fulfilled adults, possibly working in their field of choice, instead of floundering for years until they hit upon their passion.
I have recently met so many twenty year olds who are still unsure of what they want to do with their lives. Fashion, drugs, peer pressure, the need to be cool, drown out their natural inclinations towards dance, mathematics, science, music, film. Everyone has a passion, even if the rest of their lives is humdrum. These jaded twenty year olds, who have already done time in jail, had drug busts and are in rehab need direction. If they had been nurtured from childhood and allowed to follow their dreams, they would probably have avoided the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
My proposal sounds utopian, but places like Denmark and Norway are already nurturing their children. If our rulers stopped thinking of the right here and now, we would see a change in policy. If our electorate stopped thinking only of themselves and how the economy affects their pocket book, rather than how it affects their children, we would have the greens in government, or another party which cares more for the long term than little Johnnie Howard does.
You might be happy with the economy, but are you really happy with the idea of a dumber Australia? An Australia in which only rich international students and rich kids can afford an education? A world in which only the rich survive and the poor sink lower into the mire? Get back to me if you are, coz I’d like to hear a coherent, rational, solution to the mess we’re in.
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