My "Issue" Essay, NO.7

TOPIC: ISSUE130 - "How children are socialized today determines the destiny of society. Unfortunately, we have not yet learned how to raise children who can help bring about a better society."
WORDS: 572 TIME: 01:00:00 DATE: 2008-10-14 20:27:14

In this statement, the speaker points out that the next generation is important to the future, and therefore put an unsolved problem: "how to raise children who can help bring about a better society." There is no need to question the importance of our children to the development of society; however, I argue that it is not necessary to worry about whether our offspring can form a better society.

To begin with, I concede that the next generation is essential for our society's destiny, as they are the builder-to-be of the world. Whether a nation is powerful or not, her leaders should always pay attention to educate and socialize their children better. In history, many super powers declined because people declined generation by generation. The Ancient Roman Empire, which used to own the Mediterranean as her inner-land "lake", could not escape from being conquered by ancient Gaul, because the empire was not able to train the children raise legions as she used to be. On the contrary, Japan- the loser of World War II- successfully revived in twenty year, and developed to be the second powerful economic entity in the 1980s. The Japanese government attributed their success to the attention to children. One fact impressed me the most is that, in 1950s, when Japan suffered from economic depression and severe lack of food, children's daily serves of milk were always guaranteed. Difference in treating children between 1950s' Japan and Ancient Roman proved that if a nation want to develop or keep strong, paying sufficient attention to children is necessary.

Nevertheless, the statement implies that there is a standard to judge whether a society is good or bad. Yet, in societies that change as fast as ours, this standard should never exist. Twenty year ago, when we are born into the world, few people can predict the present society. Our parents could not imagine the wide use of new technologies, and they were also not able to predict that Internet can change our life style and the way of communication. Politician did not foresee today's high price of oil and the problem caused by the energy crisis. Similarly, as our society is changing faster and faster, we do not know what our world will look like after another two decades. So, how can we make such a mechanical standard to evaluate the future society, which we even cannot predict? Whether the future is desirable or not can only answered by our children.

Moreover, I advocate that our children have the right, as well as the obligation, to decide what kind of society they want to establish. Fortunately, although we cannot decide our children's future, we can help our children to become better individuals. There are two main ways. First, we can provide adequate education to our children and equipped them with sufficient knowledge- including science, technologies, culture, history, aesthetics, ethics, etc. With the basic knowledge, our next generation will have tools- at least as good as ours- to build their society and solve social problems. Secondly, we can train our children with logical reasoning and analytical skills. With these abilities, they can establish their own standards to judge their society and improve it accordingly.

In conclusion, I agree that we are able to and obliged to help our offspring to get ready for their future task to build a better society. However, we should let our children to decide their tomorrow and the future world.