People generally agree that the world is a brave new one, that they want their children to do better in life than they did and above all else that they should be happy; happy in their work, their relationships, their finances and above all else, without any mental or physical health issues.
Of course these days one needs to be the right weight, wear the correct clothing, espouse all the popular and ‘trending’ ideas: Gender equality, the right to be respected as a non-binary “They” or as a representative of the LGBT Q community.
It is also pretty important to have large number of ‘friends’ and the latest mobile phone possible…..
Perhaps it was ever thus…not sure I can remember that much, Crombie coats, lime green socks, knowing the lyrics to Beatles songs and Bye Bye Miss American Pie, supporting CND (The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) ‘free love ❤️'(widely available before Aids) they all kind of blur together,,, there was a dance called the twist which I remember being popular and my best mate at school had a second hand Hillman Imp (make of car) bought for him which made him the ‘bees knees’ as far as us lads were concerned but only slightly more popular with girls.
There really wasn’t that much on our social agenda….. playing footy in the park, watching Dr. Who, Morecambe and Wise and The two Ronnies on a Saturday taking a girl to the cinema and trying to get away with a couple of liberties, out for the Saturday (all day) on our bikes with a warning from Dad,
“Make sure you are home before dark.. and take the dog with you!”
And once away with cell phones still 30 years away from being invented, we were truly free and out of our parents’ hair for a good twelve hours, climbing trees, fishing, getting into scraps…all good clean fun.
In these and many other respects too, like free school milk, grants to go to University, real jobs or career opportunities waiting for us when we got out with no such thing as ‘Zero hour’ contracts….
I believe we never had it so good.
Now we must be ever fearful of climate change, care more about animal rights and vegan rights or refugee’s rights. We must follow the Government rules on Covid, be politically correct and get ‘offended’ by a whole range of things…. here our enlightenment and awareness is heightened by our social freedom fighters with their sensible and respected agenda telling us how badly wrong we, the now older generation got it… the “it” being pretty much everything….. so… is Greta Thumberg a heroine? …or something else? Are we all different seventy years on from seventy years ago? I am truly unsure about this.
I can’t say that my Dad thought that Black lives mattered enough to do anything about it or that he would have supported the # Me Too movement…. he spoke to me about respecting my elders and being as kind and decent to everyone as I could and that real men never hit women or children… no matter what. He told me to never argue with Mum (to which, I assumed, he attributed the overall success of his marriage ….and basically sound advice)
But… to return to my question; what difference has seventy years made?
The world is new certainly… Technological advances continue to both help and hinder our progress as a species, colleagues quite often sit in a quiet staff room silently communicating with their phones rather than each other, children have hundreds of friends… who they have never met… and they play violent and disturbing games from a desk in their bedrooms. Some kids have never seen a map and a compass or used them together because now we have GPS and Sat Navs and watches that tell us how far we walk and our heart rate and can even be used as phones… as a child I wasn’t scared of much many of today’s children experience terror and panic if you suggest they should turn their phone off to read a book!
I remember having a calculator that did four things.. + – x and divide, pretty basic sure but I could understand and use a slide rule and log tables and to help me I got the first commercially available computer, a Sinclair ZX 80 computer that cost £100 in 1980 from the Sunday Times and it could do sweet F all.. with its one K of memory…. my goldfish had more memory!…… no Walkman for my cassettes and no microwave to cook in, no iPod to listen to music, no wi fi, or 5G, no desktops or laptops or tablets and no internet….it is a mystery how I could have got a good education without all of these essentials…
But I did……
Many of us did because we had good discipline in schools and at home, few distractions, tough teachers, good role models, involved parents and healthy lifestyles and friendships . We had resilience and we didn’t seek to blame others for our shortcomings and we chose to get on with things rather than get offended!
So if I look back in anger it is because I am angry about the things human beings have lost and the way the world is going, the fact that my children are having it harder than I did and that we have learned little or nothing as humans and greed and corruption, injustice and fighting continue to thrive.
I miss the times when we had less but knew how to appreciate and think about the important things in life….. we were ready for the toughest teacher in the world… Life…. is the world’s toughest teacher because in life… the test comes first and the lesson comes afterwards.
Finally I have to say that I am rightly proud of today’s young people whilst not being ashamed of my self or my parents who lived in a different world but I sometimes despair of where we are and where we are going as a species and as a man I respect once put it;
What fools we are to live in a generation in which war is a computer game for our children. Tony Benn MP.
Have a wonderful New year everyone.
By Tim Fox
Tim has worked as a Special Ed teacher for over 40 years in eleven countries on three continents. Along the way he has been a School Counsellor a Secondary Deputy Head and a Primary Principal. He now consults on educational matters and in his spare time he counsels teenagers and teaches English IGCSE for the RAF base in Akrotiri.
