Have Our Children Stopped Dreaming?

AIMEE

I’ve thought it all out. We’re going to

live on a horse ranch, my husband and I.

I’ll work for NASA. And my husband…

he’ll do something completely different.

And we’ll offset each other. Like we’ll

have some things in common but we’ll also

have all these other dimensions that we

bring to the relationship. And that’s how

I know it’ll work.

JOE

(dismissive)

Sounds like a dream.

AIMEE

(right back at him)

It’s good to have dreams. Don’t you

think?

Above is dialogue from the best teenage drama I have seen in many years, The Spectacular Now.

It got me thinking. Do our children have dreams like our parents did? Like we did?

The generation of the moon landing always remind us that the event of man on the moon was not the main cause of celebration – it was the feeling that if we can walk on the moon, we can achieve anything we put our mind to.

Maybe those ambitions and dreams were dashed, leaving my generation feeling less convinced that vision and the determination to see it come to fruition is enough to make it happen. We still had dreams, but perhaps our faith in our capacity to see it through brought on a more lackluster work ethic and more brittle resolve.

Today’s children seem to have taken on our worst habits and abandoned the thirst for achieving something special. They don’t seem to know what they want to be or want to do. They often seem to lack the spark of self-belief to even contemplate achieving something monumental, or at least unique.

You might think I am being pessimistic when it comes to the next generation and their prospects for the future. This is certainly not the case. I have so much faith in our young. They have so much to offer and are extremely willing to learn. They just need to be ignited – to start believing again.

And they don’t need a moon landing or a Mars mission to get them dreaming again. They just need to look at their parents and teachers and role models and feel assured by what they see. If they see us living lives of integrity, taking smart risks, following our dreams, taking pleasure in our lives, they will understand that the hard work required is for a good reason. An achievable reason.We don’t want to raise a generation of children that shelves dreams in preference for the safe and boring road.

It’s up to us.

One Response to “Have Our Children Stopped Dreaming?”

John Tapscott Says:
December 19, 2013 at 12:52 am | Reply
It’s time to return control of the curriculum to teachers.

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