the wave of the future

"I believe the children are our future
Teach them well and let them lead the way
Show them all the beauty they possess inside "

whitney houston.....the greatest love of all

i was sitting around tonight just yakking with the boys, who were tossing around random statistics from some twitter feed....which led somehow to a discussion about dillon's sociology class at college (dillon is an honorary bayer)...which in turn led to a quick talk about the election and politics in general.....i'm so lucky that my kids are curious, not that they have a whole lot of choice with me around, but i love when you can see that they are actually engaged.  dill is old enough to vote, so i usually try to get him to talk about what he thinks and where he stands on things.....because this election, like most, is so important to the future of our country - THEIR future.  and they need to start paying attention.....

the ironic part is that they DO pay attention.....they just get all of their information in 140 characters or less.....they knew about prop8 because all of the celebs are tweeting about it....they did NOT know about the obamacare mandate on contraception....i'm pretty sure they dont follow a whole lot of catholics.....altho dill did come out with a random statistic that the majority of roman catholics are pro-choice (which i'm not sure i believe....but i'd like to think is true)....the way they get their information is just so incredibly different than we can possibly imagine:
Based on a sample of 2,259 adults, the (pew internet) study reveals that three fourths of the people (75%) who find news online get it either forwarded through e-mail or posts on social networking sites.
i feel like i'm fairly progressive in terms of technology....i have a facebook and a twitter (altho i cant really say i know how to use it - but i follow people) - i have an iphone and get my washington post and msnbc online....so i GET the social media trend....i just still get a great deal of my information from more traditional sources....you know i love my MORNING JOE!!  i read the paper occasionally, and listen to talk radio....you know OLD PEOPLE ways of collecting news.

funny but true story - i always make fun of the local Rochester newspaper because all of the articles are one page or less....there is no continuation.....its like if they cant make it fit without the continuation, they just dont write about it....its CRAZY....but probably because i grew up reading the washington post....where no article is ONLY one page.....and NOW, one whole page of information seems like overload....our kids are not learning how to assimilate lengthy information streams.....

my favorite tweet that demonstrates this EXACTLY:  "#obamacare mandate on #catholic contraception/morning after pill really helped #rick santorum. huge issue. religious freedom to believe. #tcot"  this was retweeted by joe scarborough

first of all, it assumes you know about the obamacare mandate and that you know WHY it would indeed aid a super conservative like rick santorum....i have no idea what the tcot hashtag means, but i'm sure my teenager would.  the amazing thing is that was RETWEETED (and ended up in my stream) by JOE SCARBOROUGH....this is what our news feed has come to....which is fine and dandy if you have other sources and are getting background from SOMEWHERE.....but i'm not so sure any of our kids ARE getting information from anywhere other than social media!!  and the extra fun aspect of that is often all they are reading are opinions of the celebrities they follow.....and these are people who get to VOTE!!   for the PRESIDENT!! they are going to help decide whether or not we get out of debt or fund medicare or repeal roe v wade....and most of them wont even know how their vote will impact those decisions....

of course i'm speaking in huge generalities....i hope everyone sits around and grills their kids like i do.....but i'm pretty sure that's not the case.....it all always goes back to the basics....home and school - it's OUR RESPONSIBILITY as parents, and secondarily as educators, to make sure our children are prepared for the FUTURE....that means taking an active role in how they exchange information.....its fine to hit the high points in 140 characters or less....as long as you've taken the time to understand what the high points are referring to!!  its fairly disconcerting to say the least when you think that by the time we retire (if thats even possible), the majority of the people helping to run the country will have never EVER picked up a newspaper....

i guess the good news is that the speed in which our kids process information is incredible.....having always had to navigate the internet for information, they certainly have ACCESS to whatever they want to find out.....so maybe our real job is to instill in them the CURIOSITY to WANT to find their own answers....in whatever format they appear.....

Curiosity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.
Samuel Johnson

altho if i'm going to limit by information intake to 140 characters or less, i'd prefer a cartoon be attached :)