I
find it astonishing what low expectations can be
held of young people. In a way this is symptomatic
of a culture which itself has dismally low
expectations of what a human being is, and
projects this onto the young because the adults
themselves are incapable of rising to higher
expectations of themselves. Young people are never
to blame because of the poor standards they are
expected to reach. The idea that students can only
learn if they are being subjected to trivial
entertainment is a denial of human capacities and
an impoverishment of their learning experience.
Young
people have a fierce hunger for the truth and all
of them respond to the message which is pitched at
the highest level if it is delivered with
sincerity and passion as well as obvious depth of
knowledge and understanding. They home in
immediately on second-class goods, they see
through those who try to patronize them, and they
are not truly inspired by styles of delivery which
dilute, sanitize, or prettify the message in order
to make it apparently more palatable.
I
believe that young people are often grossly
underestimated in our educational systems, and
that their hunger is not being fed because of a
failure to speak directly to their hearts, which
is actually a failure to speak the truth. Leaders
in so many areas (politics and education included)
have lost the will and the courage to engage
directly with the truth, and in so doing to speak
directly to the core of human beings. The worst of
our education systems is in essence a ministry of
disinformation, a covering-up and denial of the
truth. Young people can respond directly to the
strength and clarity of the unadorned message.
**Jeremy
Henzell-Thomas, a curriculum development
specialist, is the coordinator of the Curriculum
Project, formerly director of studies at a leading
independent school in England. He holds degrees in
English and applied linguistics, and a PhD in the
psychology of learning. He has served as an
executive committee member of the Association of
Muslim Social Scientists (UK) and the Chairman of
the Board of FAIR, the UK Forum Against
Islamophobia and Racism.
