It states “problems facing American society” so it’s definitely asking for American voices. It’s wonderful how many diverse voices we have from so many countries that immigrate here that are quickly added as American voices.
Thanks for a great contest! I’d love to see the deadline pushed to after the start of the school year so teachers can assign this to their classes! I teach 11th grade writing and would love this to be a required assignment! If not for this year, please consider moving the contest to later in the fall! Thx!!
I teach gen z at the college level. We attempt to find solutions to community problems. They are most certainly not doomed. They are actually really great individuals.
The last set of essays from young people were great. I'm looking forward to reading the winners. This is an important project of TFP. For all the school indoctrination and social media obsession, there are still a lot of great kids out there.
Weird, but also kind of funny, the kvetching comments about hearing from Gen Z. Last year’s winning essay, A Constitution for Teenage Happiness, was so good imo, I really loved it.
Wonderful essay. So practical. I'm sharing with my 16 yr old granddaughter. On reflection, I definitely had/lived at least 3 of her 5. Such sage advice! Refreshing and hopeful.
Later… reread this wonderful essay; I lived all 5 of Ruby’s recommendations.
The phycology of humans is not really much more evolved than our primitive ancestors. This is our primary flaw in the ointment understanding generational behavior trends. Because the attempted shift to post modernity (modernity beginning in seventeenth century when bureaucratic governance came into fashion) has been a hockey-stick graph that rocketed up, not because evolutionary human psychology jumped, but because technological advancement exploded exponentially.
So, what we see with the younger generations that have only known a life with all the technological wonder (click a few buttons on your phone and dinner is delivered in 30 minutes to your over-priced apartment). They are missing the real tangible mental and physical struggles that build a full-functioning human animal. Now, they will rage if you suggest this because they are sure they are struggling in this life. But what they don't recognize is the irony of what is an emotional and psychological struggle due to the missing real life struggles that technology and helicopter parents prevented them from experiencing. They feel the gap but cannot understand it.
To reach their full potential humans need a balance of struggles and achievement that puts constant tension on them without devolving to debilitating stress. However, the ability to cope grows with struggle and achievement.
Well-run business leadership knows this. To get peak performance from their valuable employees they need a constant and steady stream of challenging work... but not so much it breaks the confidence and motivation of the workers because they hit a wall of stress.
We need to counter-act the mistakes of parents and the negative impacts of technology by changing up our public education system to inject real life struggle. For example, the kids should all get free breakfast and lunch, but they need to work in the kitchen and cafeteria. They need to work with the janitor. They need to grow much of the food that they eat by tending gardens on school grounds. They need to learn how to balance their bank checkbook, and how to file their annual tax return. They need to get an hour of physical exercise each day. There needs to be more electives that require physical work like wood shop and metal shop and auto shop.
The kids are not broken, they are under-developed. They have been placed high on the ladder of human psychological needs having never climbed. They don't recognize nor appreciate the importance of what they missed, but it eats at them nonetheless.
The thing is... they are brilliant with their command of technology. Any country that wants to dominate the future and have a population that reports high levels of happiness needs to fill that gap of missing struggle the kids are plagued with.
They are, through no fault of their own, deprived of deprivation. They have not been taught how different their existence is from the first 99% of humanity’s existence, and have no idea how extraordinarily fortunate they are to live here and now.
For starters, gender is fluid and that blacks and other minorities are incapable of succeeding on their own merits. You could also spice things up a bit by teaching children that whites are inherently racist, that socialism always fails because they never tried REAL socialism and that we can replace fossil fuels with wind and solar alone by mid-century.
I live in Arizona. There is grass but I seldom touch it. I think the bigger point is that Zoomers spend too much time indoors, which is probably true of a lot of older people too.
Morning coffee convo:
I asked my daughter just now, “Are you Gen Z?”
She replied, “We’re definitely not Gen Alpha!”
“Well, y’all daydreaming you are but your IRL (in real life) function is broken.”
We had a good laugh.
I guess this is open only to American students, right? Otherwise, calling them "diverse" in nationality and race would make no sense
It states “problems facing American society” so it’s definitely asking for American voices. It’s wonderful how many diverse voices we have from so many countries that immigrate here that are quickly added as American voices.
Thanks for a great contest! I’d love to see the deadline pushed to after the start of the school year so teachers can assign this to their classes! I teach 11th grade writing and would love this to be a required assignment! If not for this year, please consider moving the contest to later in the fall! Thx!!
I teach gen z at the college level. We attempt to find solutions to community problems. They are most certainly not doomed. They are actually really great individuals.
The last set of essays from young people were great. I'm looking forward to reading the winners. This is an important project of TFP. For all the school indoctrination and social media obsession, there are still a lot of great kids out there.
"Dear Gen Z,
Please write an essay explaining your existence to Boomers who are on The Free Press constantly bashing you."
Gen Z isn't that different from anyone else. We all want basically the same things.
Weird, but also kind of funny, the kvetching comments about hearing from Gen Z. Last year’s winning essay, A Constitution for Teenage Happiness, was so good imo, I really loved it.
Wonderful essay. So practical. I'm sharing with my 16 yr old granddaughter. On reflection, I definitely had/lived at least 3 of her 5. Such sage advice! Refreshing and hopeful.
Later… reread this wonderful essay; I lived all 5 of Ruby’s recommendations.
The phycology of humans is not really much more evolved than our primitive ancestors. This is our primary flaw in the ointment understanding generational behavior trends. Because the attempted shift to post modernity (modernity beginning in seventeenth century when bureaucratic governance came into fashion) has been a hockey-stick graph that rocketed up, not because evolutionary human psychology jumped, but because technological advancement exploded exponentially.
So, what we see with the younger generations that have only known a life with all the technological wonder (click a few buttons on your phone and dinner is delivered in 30 minutes to your over-priced apartment). They are missing the real tangible mental and physical struggles that build a full-functioning human animal. Now, they will rage if you suggest this because they are sure they are struggling in this life. But what they don't recognize is the irony of what is an emotional and psychological struggle due to the missing real life struggles that technology and helicopter parents prevented them from experiencing. They feel the gap but cannot understand it.
To reach their full potential humans need a balance of struggles and achievement that puts constant tension on them without devolving to debilitating stress. However, the ability to cope grows with struggle and achievement.
Well-run business leadership knows this. To get peak performance from their valuable employees they need a constant and steady stream of challenging work... but not so much it breaks the confidence and motivation of the workers because they hit a wall of stress.
We need to counter-act the mistakes of parents and the negative impacts of technology by changing up our public education system to inject real life struggle. For example, the kids should all get free breakfast and lunch, but they need to work in the kitchen and cafeteria. They need to work with the janitor. They need to grow much of the food that they eat by tending gardens on school grounds. They need to learn how to balance their bank checkbook, and how to file their annual tax return. They need to get an hour of physical exercise each day. There needs to be more electives that require physical work like wood shop and metal shop and auto shop.
The kids are not broken, they are under-developed. They have been placed high on the ladder of human psychological needs having never climbed. They don't recognize nor appreciate the importance of what they missed, but it eats at them nonetheless.
The thing is... they are brilliant with their command of technology. Any country that wants to dominate the future and have a population that reports high levels of happiness needs to fill that gap of missing struggle the kids are plagued with.
They are, through no fault of their own, deprived of deprivation. They have not been taught how different their existence is from the first 99% of humanity’s existence, and have no idea how extraordinarily fortunate they are to live here and now.
I think they're doomed, but it's not their fault. They've been dealt a lousy hand with indoctrination replacing education.
Is nihilism the best approach?
What type of indoctrination?
For starters, gender is fluid and that blacks and other minorities are incapable of succeeding on their own merits. You could also spice things up a bit by teaching children that whites are inherently racist, that socialism always fails because they never tried REAL socialism and that we can replace fossil fuels with wind and solar alone by mid-century.
Is it open to out of USA high schoolers also?
One of the boomers' complaints: "No one touches grass."
Neither do I. Does this make me not a boomer?
I live in Arizona. There is grass but I seldom touch it. I think the bigger point is that Zoomers spend too much time indoors, which is probably true of a lot of older people too.
Great idea…
A typewriter!!!!
I'm in college now but I identify as a high schooler. Can I send in my experience?
😂😂😂