Invest in Youth

Long ago, communities discussed and decided on providing public education to the children of those communities. Why? Because parents knew they could not adequately provide education of their own kids in their household. They knew their children needed to learn reading, writing and math. They knew that their kids would do better in life if they were able to solve logical problems. Shaping the education was important but they really didn’t know how to do that. Yes, they hoped that values would be exposed and learned as well. Many of those values, however, were left to parents to decide and provide.

Hundreds of years later the role of education has been proven over and over in the process of developing young minds and bodies. If they are to mature into responsible adults, effective education is a must. Public education has done well. Oh, there are problems, but most of these tend to be tasks added to the education function by politicians eager to address social problems. Although schools can be effective in addressing social problems, many problems are caused by deeper underlying issues. Those need to be addressed separately; most are not. The schools get stuck with the job with little funding or professional expertise provided.

The stratification of our social order has developed a classist or caste system. We don’t label it as such, but we live these unnamed labels every day. These labels include wrong side of tracks, troublemaker, low income, dirt poor, black, Hispanic, Asian, and a whole bunch more. The actual ethnic labels have hideous names that are not shared here.

Separating people by perceived differences shoves many youths into subclasses. From there the kids survive with their own caste system of survival. Some of these are gangs. Some of these produce conformist behaviors that include drugs, antisocial actions, violence and self-destruction.

Our youth are under a lot of pressure to conform, and not to what you and I would consider standard norms. Left alone, these kids emerge as adult misfits and problem citizens. If this is what we want, then we have succeeded! The mess is present in most towns and cities. Problem youth are here. But will they stay?

I hope we can do better. I want communities to own the problems youth share. These kids need to have the same opportunities as our own kids. Nurture, education, support systems, values, and so much more. The ‘problem’ youth can have these resources if we provide them. The trouble is our society knows these problems exist and make a weak stab at addressing them. Funding is so poor; the reality of outcomes is nowhere near where we need them to be if our society is to function properly.

Gangs, guns, violence and social meltdown are now expected outcomes. Can we turn this around? If so, how? And by whom?

The nonprofit, charitable community is hard at work on these problems. They cannot do it without support from community organizations, churches, government programs and your personal involvement. The problems exist. So do the opportunities to do something about them.

As a SCORE mentor working mostly with nonprofits, I see these organizations most every day. They all struggle to raise funds to properly help youth out of problem-riddled lives. These issues require personal support programs. Often the work is done one on one by a dedicated, trained human being. Undoing damage acquired over many years takes time to repair. More of these organizations are needed. Better if mature institutions focused their considerable resources and talents on the problems. But for now, this is a nonprofit, charitable approach. It is inadequate but necessary.

Please help them survive, prosper and solve the ills of our youth. They are our future regardless how they ‘turn out.’

June 23, 2022

 

 

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