Dr. David Hopson
As I write this column one week before high school graduation, I expect that the parents of Gateway’s Senior Class members have mixed feelings about this occasion. I know that the students of the Class of 2014 have had the opportunity to prepare for life after high school and, if the seniors who participated in the senior trip to Disney World are a reliable indication, they have also taken advantage of that opportunity.
With all of the scenarios being tossed about regarding the Worthington withdrawal, I’m once again reminded of how insignificant some of our problems are compared to many others throughout the world. When compared to the annexation of a country, the loss of lives due to terrorism, or the loss of a loved one, concerns about the lawn needing mowing, rain falling on the weekend, and even budget discussions around a town withdrawing from the district, all seem a little less earth-shaking. Our seniors, on their last week in school, have a different list of concerns that, to them, are the end all, be all. As our graduates age, their concerns will change and will become more significant in an adult’s perception, but our concerns at every age are both real, and pressing, at the time we’re worrying about them. An adult may look upon the worries of a child as being inconsequential, but to the child they are real and can interfere with how that child interacts with the world.
As adults, whether as school staff, parents or community members, we work hard to protect our children and provide them with the skills and knowledge that they’ll need to be successful in the world. Part of this involves intangibles – the mindset of looking at a problem as something to be solved rather than as an impediment to moving ahead; the realization that as difficult as change is, without change there would be little opportunity; the uncertainty when proven facts and theories turn out to be based upon faulty information; and the understanding that life really is both precious and short, and passing by all too quickly.
The Class of 2014 faces a future of challenges, challenges where I anticipate young people will find opportunities to blossom and change the world for the better. Each generation experiences changes that are mind boggling. For example, the ‘baby boomers’ who were born into a world without computers and the Internet now have more computing power in a Smartphone than was available to NASA for the first space flight. From changes in medicine, where we’ve gone from no vaccines available to ward off polio to questions about how and how long we should prolong life; to changes from a high school diploma being viewed as higher education to the expectation that the first college degree is just a starting point; and to a world in which the doubling of information—once measured in decades—is now measured in months. Project the increasing pace of change forward and try to imagine what the Class of 2014 will see in their lifetime. Will they cope with climate change, will they help balance the inequities in wealth throughout the world, and will they solve the medical issues that plague us today? If the past is a predictor of the future, the answers to these and other questions would be yes, but we also have to realize that for every problem solved new problems will arise.
Yet we cannot just ignore these issues. As JFK pointed out, “Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.” As we move forward and celebrate the Class of 2014, let’s remember how fortunate we truly are because if you woke up healthy this morning, you are more blessed than the millions who will not survive this week; if you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change someplace, you are among the top 8% of the world’s wealthy; and, if you are reading this, you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world who cannot read at all. Let us remember that education, acceptance, and compassion are all essential for the progress of humankind.
