What do Young People Need?

Our youth and young adults need more than just to be treated as bigger children. They need to be challenged. They need to learn. They need to understand 1) who they are, 2) that they have a purpose & direction, and 3) what that direction and those purposes are. They need to have something to show for their results, something they can hold in their hands. They need something that they can put their name on, grasp ahold of, and make (of) themselves. They need to succeed, and they need to fail. Young men need a question to ask that will consume them, whose answer is so unattainable that they can spend their lives seeking that answer and never reach it. Young women need a love that they reach for that is so much bigger than them, that they reach for it and can never become it.

God has created our young men and young women to be so much more than they are, and to go so much further than where they are being led.

Image from dhammza used under cc license.

Youth: People With a Passion & a Purpose

What is my passion?  This question is so big that it's difficult to answer.  It's like asking the question, "How big is the ocean?".  

My vision is for our society and culture to do a 270 degree turn.  To turn the complete opposite way and then some.  Right now in our culture our youth are treated like children.  They act like children because they are expected to act that way, and they are not trained to do anything else.  Their primary education is done by the government, at the expense of their parents.  At best they are taught to excell in subjects, which is not the same thing as life.  The class generally learns at the rate of the weakest "average" student.  Their primary defining influence is usually 1 person, their teacher.  Many times they are taught the basics reading, writing, arithmatic, and other subjects but have no idea how to do anything with that information.  It is worse than useless information, it is barely useful.  

Meanwhile, for the most part, our youth are not taught how to take care of themselves.  How to succeed in life or find a career that is worth their time and effort.  They are not trained to be men and women.  To be husbands and wives.  They are taught subjects with no knowledge of how to apply that to life outside of the educational system.  As a result we have young adults and adults who leave high-school, undergraduate programs, and graduate programs with no idea as to how to be anything more than students.

Young people find that when they rebell and cause trouble they gain attention, and when they gain attention other people follow them.  Thus by rebelling they become leaders.  They are not taught or challenged to become leaders any other way... wow this is getting long, and i have only scratched the surface.

I guess that you could say that this a round about way of saying that my passion is for youth to become more than they are.  It is a passion and vision to see society, youth, the church, embrace youth and give them a vision for something more than themselves.  To give youth more than just subjects and useless information.  To challenge them to be and become people with a passion and a purpose.

So What's the Equation for Freedom?

It being 4th of July and all, i have been so tempted to write an article "celebrating" America's freedom. Our freedom to become slaves to media franchises with their own (not so) hidden agendas. Our freedom to work so hard that we alienate our children and place them under government care to be raised & instructed. Our freedom to allow Supreme Court Justices to make decisions for the people and legislate from the bench because of how they decide that they want to "(mis)translate" our Constitution. At this point i have already spent more time on this off subject than i had planned to.

What i really wanted to look at today deals in part with one of those previous topics. Who is really raising our kids? There was a time when most parents raised their own kids. They taught them the fundamentals, there was a school that taught students what they needed to know to succeed in life. Reading, writing, math, a little science, and some history. From there the kids would go home and learn a trade as part of a family business or farm. If they decided not to follow the family tradition, they were able to work as an apprentice in another area to develop the skills necessary to do that trade. When they hit a certain age (early to mid teens usually), they were treated as adults, expected to act that way, and did. They had everything they needed to survive, succeed, and raise a family of their own. Now, less than 150 years later our lives have "improved" to the point where in order to "succeed" and "do well" one must have at least 16 years of "formal" education, and even then people leave school with no idea as to how to do what they have been "taught" to do. Even in lower education there is so much time focused on information that will most likely never be used again. For instance, how many people really apply questions like those below to their lives or work?

Graph the equation and solve the problems below
45X^2(squared) + 15XY - 16Y^2 + 12 = 152
If X = 8 what does Y = ?
If X = -12... If X = p...

or even

What factors of 84 are also prime numbers?

So much time is spent away from home, students are expected to learn facts and equations that they will never use or need in real life only to leave school unprepared to succeed. Meanwhile, an ever widening division between them and their parents is formed.

Many times what formal education does develop is immature individuals who have no idea what it means to be adults, and who are full of tons of mostly useless information with no idea as to how to apply it. Meanwhile those who have so much to teach their children about being adults, spouses, and parents are spending more and more time away from those that need them the most.

Image from ~Darin~ used under cc license.