A Child of the 60s

I was born in 1954, but since I didn't start school until the 59-60 school year, my prime cultural influences, both inside and outside of my birth family came from the decade of the 1960s..... ranging from memories of my parents' fears over the Cuban missile crisis, the galvanizing sadness following President Kennedy's assassination, and the cultural changes that began trickling out of San Francisco north to my part of California following the Summer of Love.

Being at war is one of the similarities between that decade and this; we have now been actively at war even longer, and a new generation of young people are seeing the effects of themselves, their partners and friends, and the choices they have had to either make or put on hold. I am thankful for each of them that they do not have to face the 'draft'. This is not a political forum, so I won't delve too deeply into how the Vietnam war affected those around me, but suffice it to say that my personal experiences with the after effects in the 1970s have given me a large dose of compassion for those involved in the Iraq war.

Another similarity is the sense of hope and enthusiasm this election year. Maybe it is the opportunity for change after eight years with the same team, but it reminds me a lot of how people reacted to the 1968 primary election. Thankfully, we have not had to face the trauma as a country that Robert Kennedy's assassination in the midst of the California campaign created. The hope from that period inspired many in a generation just entering high school and college to study for and work in careers of social service and I am truly hoping for the same outcome, as so many of those people are now readying to retire and we need a new crop of idealists as a nation to replace the aging ones!

What is different? Technology is the most obvious difference! I can now research so many things I want to know about so quickly. When I was growing up, the library was within easy walking distance, and I made the trip at least a few times a week, but now a much larger world is open to me through the Internet (I still check out books from the library). I have been able to further my education online, and also text message my adult children to stay in touch.

The societal trend that I see having the most negative impact on child development today is the fallout of the No Child Left Behind Act. This act had the good intention of wanting all children, no matter where they lived in the country, to get a good education. Around the time it was first proposed, about a decade ago, there were gross disparities in school districts, based on funds from property taxes.... now, there is a standard allotment to each school per child attending. The idea was to make sure each school had the resources it needed. However, as standardized testing became the way to measure student success, and schools began to be 'punished' for low test scores in their student body populations, more and more schools began to eliminate elective offerings, add 'study halls', 'opportunity class', and other mechanisms to increase the likelihood of higher test scores, and to concentrate on teaching English and Math at earlier levels, with little regard to the developmental levels of the children.

Now, we have a kindergarten curriculum that insists on mastery of what was covered in first grade two decades ago, and strong fears in parents and teachers alike that if children aren't fed more instruction, earlier, they will not be able to 'compete' in the educational world. This outlook compares learning to sports achievement, without regard for the stages of child development and individual variations. Children haven't suddenly changed; they aren't ready for these steps any sooner than they were a decade or two, but the expectations are higher and the resultant stress to childhood is a very dangerous trend. I would hate to see childhood become an endangered stage of life!