For those of you who don’t know me well, I’m an English teacher at the local high school. I teach Senior Applications, which was formerly known as Business English. These students are the ones who did not want to take English IV because they typically do not do well in English, so Senior Applications is their alternative. At the beginning of the year, I was rather excited to be granted the responsibility of such a challenging group of young people.
I was excited for many reasons. The main reason for my excitement was because I thrive on meeting challenging situations, and compassion has always driven my heart to great lengths. I wanted to embrace the class and truly make a difference on several levels. I wanted to provide career inspiration/motivation, a love for literature, and a compassion for others.
Wide-eyed and naïve, I entered the classroom. It took me about two weeks to learn that not only was I not going to make a difference but also that I was about to embark on the worst year of my career. After witnessing the worst degree of apathy that I had ever seen, I spent every single night—for several weeks—crying myself to sleep. Deep, painful tears drenched my bed without any promise of an ending to this horror movie that I was calling life. Every day I would devote countless hours to the meticulous planning of lessons that I thought had the power to move people to greatness and conquer the world. But to no avail, they would lay down their heads, indifferent to my every word.
As the year progressed, the students began to prey on the weaknesses that they had created, and they would thrive on making my life even worse. There were times that I cried in front of them, only to have them laugh in my face. I’ve never wanted to quit a job so badly.
But over time, I grew more callous, and I foolishly believed once again that I had the power to make a difference in their lives. I thought, “If only I can teach them the principle of empathy, THEN I will be able to change their lives and set them on a track of greatness.”
This new idea invigorated me. My every thought revolved around the vision I had in my head of them starting their own organizations to feed homeless people. I (said in a lofty tone) was going to be the one to show them how to do it. I (said in a lofty tone once again) was going to be their leader, their provider of wisdom. I (you get the idea now) was going to have my own band of social activists.
I started introducing them to various topics associated with social injustices. I talked about sweat shops, slave trading, homelessness, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. I was certain that this was going to do the trick. They were going to be putty in my hands.
When I talked to them about sweat shops, one kid replied, “Well, they ought to be grateful that they’re getting paid at all. They should be thankful that we’re giving them a job."
When I talked about homelessness, I asked them if they would give money to a homeless man on the street. I even pointed out that if they were afraid of his spending the money on drugs or alcohol that they could buy him food and deliver it to him, and one kid said, “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! I wouldn’t go out of my way to buy food for some crack head homeless guy.”
One of my students even started talking about a homeless guy in town who was riding a bicycle one night and got run over and was killed because the vehicle didn’t see him. One of the other students laughed and said, “Well, he deserved to be run over. He shouldn’t have been drunk in the middle of the road.”
My face flushed, and for the first time ever, I violently raised my voice at my class, trying to shut down the uproar of laughter. After I was finally able to quiet them down, I opened up the subject of sex slave trading, a subject that I was CERTAIN would move them to compassion. I talked to them about how women are removed from their hometowns (by being led to believe that they will be employed elsewhere) and then are drugged, only to become prostitutes against their will. I told them stories of sex slave trading that has occurred right here on American soil. The class was silent. I did it! I moved them to compassion. And then, a little voice rose from the ashes and said, “If a woman is stupid enough to fall for that kind of trick, then she deserves for that to happen to her. And who would be stupid enough not to be able to get away from that? Do you mean to tell me that FOURTEEN [referring to one of my stories] women don’t have the power to get away from ONE pimp? Well, they’re just idiots.”
Then, the class erupted, jumped on his ignorant bandwagon, and began throwing out their own slanderous comments.
That night, I would cry myself to sleep once again. The tortoise shell exterior that I had created was once again the feeble exterior of a wet moth, all in a matter minutes.
I couldn’t understand how anyone could say such things. I agonized over it for the rest of the year. I wanted answers. And then it hit me: We’ve created monsters. The faults of THIS generation lie in the hands of all generations that preceded them. We’ve created social monsters. We’ve created a “What’s in it for me?” generation.
After World War I, a generation emerged that became disillusioned by the American Dream and cynically began to question the validity of everything. Before the Civil War, when society was delusional and thought that life revolved around reading sonnets to their bonnie lass while sitting in a wheat field with their pet sheep, no one would question a good thing. If you were to travel in time to the Romantic era and tell someone that he had just won a million dollars, that person would leap for joy, kiss you, and ride you off into the sunset on his white horse. But now, when we receive a letter from Publishers Clearing House that reads, “You’ve just won a million dollars,” the first thing we look for is the trashcan.
Marketing experts are aware of this phenomenon. It is impossible to turn on the television and not be bombarded by their tactics. They know that if they want to reach this current generation, they’re going to have to offer them something much more than just the product. If it’s a shampoo commercial, they’ll have to offer them more than good hair; they also are offering them happiness and sex appeal. One hundred percent cotton Dockers offer them more than pants; they offer them the status that is associated with hanging out with other people who wear cotton Dockers. Nearly every commercial offers them more than the product at hand.
But what concerns me more than the nature of television commercials is the current nature of the Church. We, too, are responsible for catering to this generation’s need for knowing “what’s in it for them.” We have fliers that offer them more than God. We make promises that they’ll get something in return if they put money in the offering.
But how cool would it be if we could simply offer them God? How cool would it be if we were able to encourage them to give to missions instead of assuring them that the money would benefit them in some way?
We’ve created such a self-centered generation that the only way to counter our mistakes is to “kill the monster.”
Church, the way it’s always been done, is no longer effective. The current trend in youth services is to create a climate that students think is cool enough to bring their friends to so they won’t be embarrassed by anything lame. We have bought into the mindset that if we can create a cool atmosphere, they will come. The problem with this arrangement is that when they DO come (and they inevitably WILL), they expect more and more. They don’t expect more GOD; they expect more music, more entertainment, more comedy, and you get the idea.
Why don’t we, instead, create a climate that is not student-centered (or church member-centered) and create a climate that is God-centered? It would be fantastic if students could bring their friends to a meeting place where they could come and immediately take on the role of Christ. After all, that’s what being a Christian is all about, right? Perhaps youth services could be a place where they could learn more about becoming involved in their communities and learn how to do more to fight against social injustices. Of course, I would never want church to quit being a house of worship and a place to dig into the word of God, but I would like to see church also become a place of action, not just a place where the woes of social injustices are DISCUSSED, but a place where action is involved.
Church leaders could get newcomers involved IMMEDIATELY instead of waiting on them to be “good enough” to get involved. The problem with most ministries today is that they are placed on a pedestal, and many people that are involved sit atop them and guard the tower with the pitchfork of judgment and gossip, deciding for themselves who is good enough to “join.” But with a new mentality, ANYONE can be involved because ANYONE can serve others. There’s no loftiness associated with helping others.
We often try to think of new ideas to reach today’s generation. How about we redirect our energies to trying to think of ways for our generation to reach others who are REALLY in need?
If we don’t take action soon, then this generation will become a lost cause like Frankenstein’s monster: “You are my creator, but I am your master—obey!"—The Monster, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
