Talking about My Generation

I am reading the time. 22.25.
Have been home an hour, eaten some home made ratattouille, watched ‘Mock the Week’ and the News.
Compassion for the Lockerbie Libyan and free elections in Afghanistan. Bolt running to become the fastest man alive – how do we know that? – and cricket. Sometimes I weary at the way news is put together. The new crew of decision makers creating our mind set.
Last night I took a young woman to ‘The Ivy’ to celebrate her GCSE’s, she hasn’t got her results yet, but I felt it was my duty to remind her that there was nothing she could do about her performance now and it didn’t matter anyway.

I truly believe that we adults are letting down the younger generation. It is a disgrace that when kids can get good marks they have nowhere to study. That parents have to watch their progeny stagger away from a reality that leaves them with an uncertain future.
What have we done that we play the numbers game with peoples lives. We call ourselves the First World and yet Britain is failing it’s youth. We complain about knife crime, we attack unfocussed youngsters and yet what are our so-called Brains doing with the money that could be used to educate them? I am appalled and angered by the divide that is growing.
Paying for knowledge?
Independent schools versus state schools.
What have we become that our children are being treated little better than sheep. Money thrown at weapons, money thrown at a war that nobody wants, money wasted on pen pushers, money used by the bankers for the bankers, the list goes on.
This evening I went to see The National Youth Theatre’s latest production at The Soho Theatre in London. It gave me a belly ache. I was bemused. The kids did their best with a not very good production. The direction was not good and the writing sketchy. I love Paul Roseby, the Artistic Director, I know that he is utterly devoted to his team and company, but the standard of tonights offering revealed the lack of wit, power and charisma of our next generation of actors. It was the same at the Globe.
It’s like The Emperors new Clothes, believing a myth that things are better than they are.
Getting 4 grade ‘A’s means nothing if everybody is getting the same. It reduces the learning process into a yearly lottery. Learning is an ongoing process you don’t stop when you’ve turned the exam paper over and screwed the pen lid on. We are not teaching our young the joy of knowledge, the power of knowledge. All we can offer is Celebrity this and celebrity that. Instant gratification, shabby, shabby, shabby. We have lost our way.
I don’t care whether it’s New Labour or Old Conservative politicians none of them represent us any more. They represent their own greedy need for power, their platitudes and empty promises make me, quite literally, sick and tired.
Today I opened my phones to kids who didn’t get a full score board, and why not. Everybody has a right to contribute to society, everybody has the right to know that a scrap of paper does not make them who they are.
Well done to all the kids that got ‘A’s and ‘A’ stars, but an equally massive well done to the kids who didn’t.
In todays society where failure is applauded in front of an ignorant, baying audience, where prime time television encourages humiliation and bullying is it any wonder that we have a demoralised generation?
If we don’t wake up soon to what is happening around us then global warming, the loss of wild life and the destruction of our towns and villages won’t mean a thing since we wont have any intelligent life force to manage it.