Child is Father/Mother...

Despite the rancor at town hall meetings across an increasingly stressed America, there is some very good news coming from a hopeful source: high school students and rising college first-year students.  While so many adults are indulging in anti-social rage against change, their children are quietly learning, preparing, observing and developing their personal life plans.  From the look of things, they are choosing change, seeing promise in lifelong learning, knowledge as infinite, and following discovery where it leads as long as it results in good - for themselves, their families, their communities and their planet.

In a related article by Tamar Lewin about the rapidly diminishing importance of textbooks in high school education, there is an intriguing subtext that made me sit up and pay attention - students are relating to the world they are inheriting in a productive way that contrasts with their elders' approach.  If you get a moment, read In a Digital Future, Textbooks Are History (NYT, 9 Aug 2009).