Paper presented by Dr Abe V Rotor, UST
1. Our children’s
development depends largely on interrelated factors
and stages:
1. genetic (inherited)
2. fetal (in
the womb)
3. childhood (environment &
training)
4. lifestyle (influence of
society)
Like a house these are the 4 posts
–pillars of our children’s
personality and well-being.
2. Our children are likely to
affected by "Your head is in the cloud" syndrome.
- Inundated by more information than
they can possibly hold in their
heads, they’re
increasingly handing off the job of
remembering to search engines and smart phones.
Never
mind memorizing the multiplication table, or Mendeleev's
Periodic Table of Elements. Spelling of a word, its homonym, antonym?
Check it out on
the computer. Assignment?
Search, download, print, submit -
just don't forget to place your name. Psychologists proposed a
new term - transactive
memory, a prelude to blending natural and
artificial intelligence.
3. Our children
are becoming more
and more transient in domicile where work may require, and for personal reasons, and
when given the choice and opportunity in a global perspective.
“Citizen of the world” is a person
without a specific country. He is
rootless, baseless, transient. Compared,
humans since creation live together under a specific culture.
4. Our children face more frequent,
and deeper, forms of stress. People with higher levels of education and in
higher status occupations and higher income are experiencing higher levels of
stressors.
¨
Success can make life harder if you
are driven, work-devoted that high status persons tend to be. Mental and
physical health benefits associated with greater affluence fade away. It is
harder to cope with stress when you have reached the top of your career.
5. Our children
face – more than we do today - the
consequences of loss
of privacy and secrecy. “There is no place you can remain
with comfortable anonymity.”
Wikileak
unveiled classified information
about the Iraq and Afghanistan war. DNA
test proves real parental lineage. Bank secrecy laws and safeguards are
changing. Citizens claim
their right to access
to hidden financial transactions.
¨
6.
Our children will face deprivation of natural beauty and bounty with the
unabated shrinking wildlife, conversion
of farms and pastures into settlements, and destruction of natural habitats and
ecosystems. The challenge to restore nature will be placed in their care.
“Canned
Nature” (delata) – pseudo Nature Centers. Gubat sa Siyudad,
Fantasyland, Ocean Park, Disneyland, Eco Village, zoos,
botanical gardens.
7. Our children are at the frontline and center of people’s revolution spreading worldwide.
Arab Spring is sweeping North Africa and the
Middle East, so with the escalating unrest questioning the
present world order. All over US the young are angry at
the inability of government and capitalism to narrow down economic inequity. Occupy Wall Street! is
the battle cry. Syria is sitting on social volcano. Greece, Italy, Spain, once world powers in
their own time are undergoing a similar revolution.
8. Our children will be part of devolution of power, decentralization of authority, and will be part of a new breed of more dedicated leaders.
8. Our children will be part of devolution of power, decentralization of authority, and will be part of a new breed of more dedicated leaders.
Children hold the key to change.
It’s the Little
Prince that changed and saved the pilot in
an ill-fated plane crash in Sahara.
9. Our children face acculturation and inter racial marriages. M̩lange of races is on the rise РEurasian, Afro-American, Afro-Asian, etc. Рa homogenization process that reduces as a consequence, the diversity and vigor, of gene pools.
The benefits – economic, cultural and scientific
- may not hold in the long run. Homogenization leads
to narrowing down of the gene pool,
and may threaten races and ultimately the species.
10. Our children may find themselves in a new norm of living alone. Solitary living is spreading all over the world, the biggest social change that has been long undermined.
Living solo
is highest in Sweden (47%), followed by Britain (37%),
Japan, Italy, US, Canada, Russia, South
Africa, Kenya, and Brazil (10%). Living alone
may help people
pursue modern values - individual
freedom, and self realization
– but detrimental to health and happiness,
and in the long run,
to the
community and nation. It could lead to more, and deeper, gender problems mainly on homosexuality.
11. Our children may find
themselves among the increasing rank of the Nones
- people who have no religious affiliation,
rejecting organized religion as being rigid and dogmatic
- hoping to eventually find the right
religious home.
It is a kind of freedom to feel
more devoted to God, of moving away from the problems of the church, and
money-making religions. However, this could lead to deeper consequences since
such loss may include loss of faith in other institutions.
12. Recycling
the Suburbs. Environmentalists will celebrate the demise of sprawling suburbs,
which left nations addicted
to cars. Infrastructures will be converted in favor of "green", town
centers, public libraries, museums, sports centers, parks.
More and
more countries are imposing regulation to green the cities, from sidewalks to
rooftops. Hanging Gardens of Babylon,
anyone? If
this was one of the wonders of the ancient world, why certainly we can make a
replicate - perhaps a bigger one - given all our modern technology and enormous
available capital.
13.
Our children face the age of
singularity whereby human and artificial intelligence
are integrated. Robotics robs human of
his rights and freedom – new realm of curtailment and suppression. (2045 – The
Year Man Becomes Immortal – Time Magazine). This is falsehood!
14. Our children will continue
looking for the missing
links of science, history, religion,
astronomy etc., among them the source of life itself and its link with the
physical world.
Linking of disciplines, narrowing
down the gaps of specializations, is vital
in the making of a new culture.
15. Our children
will witness in their time the beginning of a post-capitalism order,
environmental revolution, rise of growth centers and shift in economic
dominance and order, more green technologies, and space exploration.
Success of China, Singapore,
Malaysia, Germany, Vietnam, has opened other post-capitalism models.
16. Our children, as they grow old, will be living in an aging society, and learn to age gracefully themselves. They will find , and become part of the Aging Niche.
16. Our children, as they grow old, will be living in an aging society, and learn to age gracefully themselves. They will find , and become part of the Aging Niche.
Longevity
is increasing all over the world: the
average age of a Japanese is 78 years, the American 75
or 76 years. We are quite close to China with at least 70 years.¨Niche
communities are where people as
they advance in age opt to grow
old alongside others who share a specific interest.
17. Our children will carry on a
lifestyle "Handprints, not Footprints“.
They will carry on this way of caring the
Earth which we started.
They will reduce the
impact of living against the environment - less CO2, less CFC, less
non-biodegradables and other synthetics, less pesticides, etc. On the other
side of the equation would be the number of trees they
plant, their savings on
electricity and water. Lesser pollutants, if not arresting pollution itself -
and the like. Our children
will clean the land, water and air we the generation before littered. They will heal the earth we defaced, damaged.
18. Our children will fit into any
society where racism and apartheid had once divided people because of the color of their skin and region of origin.
Today colored athletes
dominate many
sports, many are great leaders
of states and movements. Kopi Annan, an
African, served the UN for many years, Kenyan Wangari
planted millions of trees. Both are Nobel Prize recipients. President Obama
of the US, and the living hero of South Africa, Nelson Mandela
are the world’s most popular leaders today. Man is
created equal beneath their skin, and in fact, by circumstance, the colored
races have proved superiority over the non-colored: in schools, scientific
discoveries, business, technology - name it and you have a colored standing
out.
19. Our children will realize and
enjoy the benefits that jobs are assets.
A sampling of fast-growing occupations - Actuaries, financial analyst, computer
programmer, fitness trainer, biophysicists, translators, manicurists, marriage
counselors, radiologists.
Need a design for your product?
Give it to an IT graduate with a background in design. Need a kind of product
or service not found in the mall or supermarket, search the Internet.
Entrepreneurs have taken over much of the functions of big business.
20. Finally, postmodernism may do
more harm than good for our children
in a runaway technology and culture. They cannot and will not be able to
keep with the pace and direction of
change.
This is not true. “I am the master of my fate, I’s the captain of my soul.” And this is what we want our children to become – but only when they are CHILDREN OF NATURE. ~
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