Youth Leaders

Sat Oct 9 06:11:21 PDT 2010

Michael, and other comments. .. I don't think anyone commenting actually
understood what I tried to say so I conclude that I failed to communicate.

Young humans are not yet fully evolved humans. What all young people need,
including the most precocious of them, including ones that get asked to sit
on the board of the Jane Goodall Institute, is to be children.  It is only
by being children than humans can become fully realized adults.

The world needs fully realized adults to achieve our shared, highest
destiny. When we push children out of childhood and into the adult realm,
those people rarely, if ever, get space later in life to go back and fill in
the gaps of what was missing.

Michael, yes, indeed, children can bring a lovely element to any open space.
. . but that does not mean that it is right.  Children should not be asked
to participate in adult matters.  Ever.

The damage contemporary society does to childhood is a very serious,
long-term consequence to humanity. If we do not keep children asleep in
childhood so they might do the inner work of their inner beings, we will
have a human future full of unrealized 'grown ups'.  It is casual,
nonsensical folly to bring children -- unformed adults -- into adult
discussions. It is wrong on a gagillion levels.

We are all so caught up in rushing towards the future. One thing we humans
cannot 'rush' is the slow development and incubation of fully realized human
beings:  that development takes place in childhood. It is irrationally folly
to bring children into adult decisions.

On Fri, Oct 8, 2010 at 3:06 AM, Michael M Pannwitz <mmpanne at boscop.org>wrote:

> Dear Tree,
> from where I sit (public) decision making as presently practiced, for
> instance in Germany, is ineffective, creates larger problems, is
> lobby-infested, dogmatic, expensive, not even a good show... who would want
> to be part of that?
> What I have experienced often in "formal" open space events and in the
> "normal" open space of everyday life (like the 1,5 year old daughter of a
> neighbor visiting and taking over our household, very effectively involving
> us in her life and experiments, curious, decisions?-easy for her....pure
> joy)is that kids of all ages thrive in it.
> But then, thats not decision making in the sense of sitting on a "board" of
> whatsoever.
> Day-care children, grade school kids, highschool kids, teenagers... are the
> greatest gift to an open space event, so I encourage their taking part and
> it seems to always have been productive, fun, healthy...
>
> Have a great day
> Greetings from Berlin
> mmp
>
> Tree Fitzpatrick schrieb:
>
>> 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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>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
> --
> Michael M Pannwitz, boscop eg
> Draisweg 1, 12209 Berlin, Germany
> ++49-30-772 8000
> mmpanne at boscop.org
> www.boscop.org
>
>
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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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