Do you remember when dreams were big, and possibilities were endless? Do you remember the day you decided to become educated in this world of educating others? Maybe it was because your mama was a teacher, or a teacher inspired you, or the opportunity to have summers off seemed cool? Or maybe you didnât get the things you needed while growing up and you decided that you werenât going to let that happen to other kids. You were going to be the light for othersâthe one you needed and never received. Whatever the reason might have been, letâs start there. At the beginning.
Back to Your Why
Tell me, out loud if you can or in your head if you must, howâd you get here? Why are you in this job of influencing some of the most important little people in the world? Simon Sinek1 suggests that we should think bigger than that: What is your critical purpose on this planet? Not just âwhyâ you are here, but what will be your legacy? How do you want to be remembered?
When I think about your job from the perspective of a mother of three of my own tiny humans, hereâs what takes my breath away: You get to be with my kid in the run of a school week more than I do. Your relationship with my babies becomes critical. The fact that you give up your days, hours, weeks, nights, for my kids makes me so grateful to you. You lose sleep over someone elseâs babies. You have likely, at one point in your career, considered adopting someone elseâs child (until your partner reminded you that you werenât rocking it with your own so another human in the mix was likely not a wise choice). You have spent time worrying, thinking, and doing things for someone elseâs kids while wondering if you should be worrying, thinking, and doing things for your own babies or the people in your own family. Someone elseâs kids make marks on your heart that you sometimes wish you could erase. If you do this job well, itâs going to break your heart.
Think about the top three kids who youâll never forget. Get them in your head. Those kids, those families you bring up in your mind and in your heart in an instant. Thatâs connection. There was something about them, about their story, and their relationship with you that left its mark. And thatâs the very thing this whole book is about. I promise you if you can get them in your head, they think about you twice as much. You may never know it because they donât have the capacity to tell you. A connection sometimes (often) transcends words. How were they lucky enough to get you? Those are the ones on whom youâve had the greatest impact.
My question to you, sweet educators, is why did you choose this work? Is it safe to assume itâs not for the pay? Or for the summers off (do you hate when people say that all the time)? I really feel like you should all have t-shirts that say, âI wouldnât need the summer off if your kids werenât so frigginâ bad.â But I digress. You, my friend, do the hard and holy work.
Our Next Generation
Alice Walker, in The Color Purple, wrote: âThe most common way people give up their power is by thinking they donât have any.â2 Sometimes, it can feel like we donât have any influence over these babes, especially the ones who are hardest to reach. But Iâm going to talk to you about why that is simply not true.
I want you to think about your biggest mentor. Who in your life, maybe a teacher, coach, your mom, your uncle, your Baba, a thesis advisor, was the person who inspired you? Now feel them in your heart. What is it about this person that comes to mind so quickly? As the great Maya Angelou and others have taught us, âpeople will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.â3 Your connection to that person is where the power lies.
Our words are powerful. Conversely, you wouldnât listen to even the most eloquent, compelling, insightful words unless you had a connection to the person speaking them. We rarely come out of the gate with, âIâm going to respect you, you tell me what to think, and then Iâm going to decide how I feel about you.â It always happens in reverse: âWhen you make me feel connected to you, Iâll listen to you all day long.â Think about your biggest mentor once again. Thatâs the definition of a good leader. A good teacher. When you can connect with me, I will do anything for you. Thatâs how you can become the most influential person on the planet or set the culture in a school, when you recognize that especially for our broken babies, very few people connect to them. See, the ones who need it the most are often the hardest to give it to.
So Do We Really Have a Problem with Kids These Days?
When you ask most people about kids these days (and I have), they often say theyâre âdisrespectful. Lazy. Spoiled. Depressed. Anxious.â We even have a term for this lot; we call them Gen Zs. These generations of kids have been the cause of many concerned conversations over coffee, with the general consensus that kids these days donât know what hard work means.
But are they really that terrible? Do they really struggle to the degree we think they do? We have a lot of incredible resources in our nation. In fact, Dr. Stan Kutcher 4warns us that we donât want to confuse mental distress with mental illness. He cautions against pathologizing normal behavior and to be careful with the words we use to describe the struggles kids these days are experiencing. Itâs so important to keep things in context. Iâm going to do my best to remember that, as I tell you how I see it.
So, what are we dealing with exactly? Close to 800,000 people die due to suicide every year (one person every 40 seconds). Suicide occurs throughout the lifespan and is the second leading cause of death among 15- to 29-year-olds. It is a global phenomenon.5 In Canada, our suicide rate is the third highest in the industrialized world, higher than both the United States and the United Kingdom.
In a study by the Kids Help Phone (2016), it was reported that one in five teens in Canada has seriously considered suicide in the previous 12 months.6 That means in a classroom of 20 kids, four have a plan. Let that sink in for a moment: Four kids have a plan. And we also know, the more specific one gets in their planning, the more likely theyâre going to do it. That reality is sobering. Just as troubling, and often identified as the âcauseâ of suicide, is mental illness. In 2016, the Mental Health Commission of Canada reported that at any given time, 50% of our hospital beds in Canada are used as mental health service beds.7 That means every second kid in a hospital bed in Canada is there because of suicidal ideation, or a mood-related concern like anxiety or depression. Never in the ten years I worked in the psychiatric inpatient unit at the Alberta Childrenâs Hospital was there an empty bed. Not one day.
So, at the risk of overexaggerating our mental health concerns, I want to offer a perspective about why itâs a concern. See, I believe that kids these days have never felt so unheard, so disconnected. Kids are turning up the volume to get their needs met more than they have ever done before. As I write in this chapter, The Sandy Hook Promise reported that 2018 is the worst year on record for gun violence in schools in the USA. In Canada, although school shootings are extremely rare (a marked discrepancy from other countries, which we will address in the chapter on trauma), various protocols have been developed to identify kids who are most âat riskâ for committing such acts. We work hard to identify the kids and the reasons, but I donât think the reason is as complicated as we think.
Getting Back to the Good Old Days
Spiritual teacher and author Marianne Williamson altered the way I think about a lot of things with one single quote: âThereâs no single effort more radical in its potential for saving the world than a transformation of the way in which we raise our children.â8 Itâs that single word, âtransformation,â that hits me the hardest. See, every generation before us has said the same about âkids these days.â Do you remember ever being told that âyou have no idea how good you have itâ? I often remember a version from my parentsâ generation, involving âwalking to school uphill, both ways, in the snow.â
Nowadays we gather evidence to make our case that our kids are acting out way worse than we did: âTheyâre always on their devicesâ; âThey donât know how to work unless they have a bean bag chair to sit onâ; âTheyâre never on timeâ; âThey are so disrespectful and entitled.â My personal favorite: âThey show up for important things with pants hanging down so far the crack of their ass shows!â See, when we get concerned about an entire generation, we start to seek answers; we get desperate to explain something that causes us such grief. We say, âIt must be the glutenâ; âIt could be all that sugarâ; âItâs all that screen timeâ; âItâs those violent video gamesâ; âItâs the gunsâ (letâs ban guns immediately); âWe need to bring back spankingâ; or the old adage, âKids should be seen and not heard.â
I donât think any of that stuff is the problem (in part or entirely). I do think access to semiautomatic rifles is not just unnecessary, but a terrible idea. And I do think we need to get back to âthe good old days.â Our babies now have so many opportunities that make life comfortable, and Iâm so thankful for all of those things. After all, isnât that the goal? I believe, however, that the past had one thing over us that weâre losing at a rapid rate: Proximity. Never before have we had so much distance between usâliterally and figuratively. In this world of massive technological proficiency, weâve become increasingly disconnected. Hereâs how itâs happened.
Think about your grandfather. What was the square footage of the house in which he was raised? Houses were small back then. Rooms were shared by siblings or even generations of family members. How much time did he spend in direct contact with his parents, siblings, and then with his own kids (your mom or dad)? Most houses didnât have a TV. They were in greater proximity to each other than we are today. They often worked together during the day and if they had a disagreement, they had to ride in the truck or walk home together. And they didnât have their phones to zone out. If they had a fig...