My last blog centered on the Haitian children suffering in the aftermath of the earthquake, and dealt with the topic of "loss of innocence", and whether or not children who have "lost their innocence" can still be considered children. Later, I found an interesting website where author Michael Medved wrote about how he believes our country is not protecting the "innocence" of our children, but instead following a different path. He says, "we now go for a preparation model. That is the emphasis on American education. 'Let's warn the child about all of the dangers, about all of the horrors in the world."
Mr. Medved gave many examples in his article of ways in which our education systems are trying to "prepare" children for the real world, in sometimes harsh ways: Children in elementary school through highschool are being taught, "We're doomed! In the future there will be no clean air, there will be no clean water! The sky is falling!" (when in reality he says that the truth is, there have been many governmental success stories regarding the environment, and cities have more clean air than they did 20 years ago). I know that a couple years ago, my little sister learned about global warming in third grade. She came home and couldn't sleep with a stomach ache because she was so scared about how our world was going to survive. And, most shocking to me: the website said that in Minnesota, first graders are being educated on AIDS.
Is this right? Is there a certain age that is too young for children to hear about this kind of stuff? I am not an idealistic, and I believe that at somepoint everyone needs to find out about AIDS and be educated so that we can work to stop the epedemic, and everyone needs to learn to be aware in how they treat our planet. But why do first graders need to be conserned about AIDS? I think children need to have a higher level of maturity and brain development to handle topics such as that. And that goes for the environment, too. I believe that children in elementary schools should be taught the necessary fundamentals that will prepare them for their secondary educations, but not in a way that burdens them.
The author of the website said that children should be able to be optimistic, have a sense of wonder, and feel secure. But are we preventing them from having these things through our education? What do you think? Should we, as a country, be protecting our children - or educating them about the harshness of our world to "prepare" them for the future?
The Website: http://www.mfc.org/pfn/97-6/medved.html
I think this idea relates to the reoccurring theme of where to draw the line-- at what age should children be educated on issues like AIDS? I don't think that it's necessary to make children aware of these issues at such a young age. I don't think they have enough life experience to fully understand the impact of the issues, which makes the knowledge of their existence useless. Relating to your previous blog post, the burden of this knowledge could lead to a loss of innocence. Awareness is necessary, but only when it can be understood and put to good use.
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