Youth Leaders

[Tree Fitzpatrick]

There are many things off kilter in human culture. One thing that I think is
off kilter is that adult humans now routinely encourage non-adult humans to
participate in things like 'public decision making'.  Where did we get the
assumption that a young person has the capacity of a fully evolved adult
human to make informed decisions that might have long term consequences on
the child, other children, the community, the culture, etc? Children are not
yet adult.

We encourage children to 'awaken' to adulthood far too early.

I am appalled that many now take it for granted that children (a non-adult
is still a child) should sit on something like the Board of Directors of
something like the Jane Goddall Institute (whatever that is, I imagine
Ashley meant Jane Goddall).

This is a major flaw, I think, in evolving culture and it has endlessly
complex repercussions.

Children's job is to be children, to developo their own personhood fully so
that they will one day take a place in adult community. Children awaken to
adult considerations much too early. TElevision has been a huge culprit in
this regard and now, of course, the internet.

A child's main work is being a child. It's just not right to cavalierly get
youth input into decisioins that children cannot, just cannot, really know.
A twelve year old, a sixteen year old, is not mature enough to make complex
public decisions and it is wrong to ask them to:  asking children to
participate in grown up life as peers with the adults dishonors children

I get my main attitudes about children from having sent my child to a
Waldorf School and having been a student of Rudolf STeiner for over twenty
years. Much of what is wrong with human culture can be traced to the
practice of stunting youthful inner development under the guise of awakening
children too early to adult concerns. This is why we now have an education
system in USA that is focussed on test scores instead of the inner
development of children. There is a story in today's NYTImes about how
publishers are publishing less picture books and how parents pressure four
years olds to listen to long stories and skip picture books so they will
have better test scores later. . . this dynamic is connected to including
youth in public decisinmaking.

I know this is a very popular trend and I know Ashely Cooper is deeply
invested in the world and I know she is a good caring person intent on
making positive contributions in the world.

I get to have my opinion, yes?  I am worried about the millions of humans
who are children today who are not cloud-gazing and spending their summers
hunting rocks and birds' nests and who are told, when they are twelve, that
they can contribute to public decisions. Grown up humans have a duty to
children:  to let them be children. Otherwise what we are creating is an
army of humans who are not fully developed humans who will make good wage
slaves for the elite billionaires running the tea part movement. Thinking
caring loving people should not participate in pushing children into the
adult arena while children.

On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 6:51 PM, ashley cooper
<mail.easilyamazed at gmail.com>wrote:

> Hello Open Space friends,
>
> I have fallen off of the OSlist for awhile, but I wanted to share with you
> a talk from a recent TEDx event that I hosted, TEDxNextGenerationAsheville<http://www.tedxnextgenerationasheville.com/>.
> This event was all about spotlighting the ideas of young people and giving
> them a public stage from which to share and be heard. It was also an
> invitation for there to be more collaboration between youth and adults.
> Chase Pickering spoke about the role of youth in leadership and how young
> people can contribute to public decision-making and serve on Board of
> Directors (which he did with the Jane Goddall Institute). If you are in a
> position to invite a youth to serve on your board of directors or advisory
> board or encourage the clients you work with, please consider Chase's
> advice!
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27IJpZVP1qs
>
> You can also watch Birke Baehr's talk about the food we eat. He is an 11
> year old who is passionate about food and whose talk has gone viral and been
> viewed over 200,000 times in less than 2 weeks.
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7Id9caYw-Y
>
> Sending fondest regards from Asheville, NC, USA,
> Ashley
>
> P.s. If you would like to respond to me personally, please send it to
> easilyamazed at gmail.com . I have not been checking this account regularly.
> Thank you.
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-- 
Love rays,
Tree Fitzpatrick  (check out my new address)


. . . the great and incalculable grace of love, which says, with Augustine,
"I want you to be," without being able to give any particular reason for
such supreme and unsurpassable affirmation.  -- Hannah Arendt

2175 Kittredge St Apt 615
Berkeley, CA 94704
510-665-4825

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