Previously I wondered about teenagers and their connection with nature when I posed the question "Is my teenage daughter really out of touch with nature?". Last month, the Children and Nature Network website posted a similar question in an article about high school student's interactions with nature.
Reading the Youth07 report I look at the teenagers that have come into my life, as friends and accomplices of my teenage son and daughter, who are thirteen and sixteen years old. It is most likely you will know a teenager who sits in front of a screen for most of the day, is attached to a cell phone unconditionally and has plugs in their ears non-stop. And anybody who is parenting a teenager knows about the turbulence in emotions parenting a teenager may bring. New Zealand's parenting gurus Ian Grant and John Cowan wrote a brilliant book about parenting teenagers "The White Water Rafting Years". With two teenagers in our family, it does feel sometimes as if we are negotiating white-water rapids. However, if you have ever done white water rafting, or as in my case, white water kayaking (yes I kayaked the famous Petawawa River in Ontario), you will also know about the thrill you experience after you have safely negotiated the rapids. I'd like to share one of these thrills with you.
Just like many New Zealand teenagers, Femke and Brittanny, sixteen and seventeen years old, own a cellphone, an Ipod and other gadgets. They have readily access to computers and televisions. Throughout the year, the girls are bogged down with homework, internal testing and NCEA exams. Femke and Brittanny attend one of New Zealand's top private girl schools. A school with strong traditions, values, principles and high expectations. A school also where strong leadership is modeled and encouraged. However, the girls feel there is one crucial thing at the school missing. The school does not have an environmental group. So these summer holidays the girls took it upon themselves to examine the feasibility of an enviro club at their school.
While their friends went camping, or hung out at the beach or were watching movies, Brittanny and Femke retreated in their bedrooms and researched global warming, sustainable practices, Enviroschools membership and environmental education. They collated plenty of material and wrote a plan, created a slideshow and prepared a presentation speech for the principal. Back at school they went to see the principal, after having made an official appointment through her p.a.. There they presented their proposal to create an enviro club, and for their school to become an Enviroschool. Their report identifies and describes the "what, why, when and where " of an enviro club at their school.
The Youth07 report doesn't portray a very positive picture of our youth today. About a third of the teenagers admit to watching more than three hours television or spending at least three hours sending text messages each day. And only 4% are involved in volunteer communities like Greenpeace. Grant and Cowan write in "The White Water Rafting Years", "Today's teenagers have bought into shallow materialism to a far greater extent than earlier generations. Most of them define their future goals (if they have any) purely in material terms. They may not see the spiritual and emotional shallowness of this, but they do experience the "soul-rot" of it."
In our modern world, there seems to be a lack of connection between our teenagers fast living patterns and natures slow moving rhythms. Teens have much fewer opportunities nowadays to turn their attention to nature.
Having said that, environmental issues like global warming, poverty and over exploitation are issues teenagers are more aware and knowledgeable of today then we ever were. And not all teenagers turn to tv and videogames when faced with boredom.
Femke and Brittanny found a passion, caring for the environment and the future of the planet. They initiated their own actions and presented their ideas to the appropriate authority. Encouraging teenagers to identify and pursue their individual passions allows them to take charge of their own lives and hence emerge as natural leaders. The girls proposal for the school to become an Enviroschool, and to educate their fellow students about the effects of global warming, and what they can do to make a difference, has been positively received by the principal. Their proposal now awaits approval from the school council. Regardless of the outcome, approval or disapproval, to see young teenagers take initiative and leadership with passion, innovation, creativity and curiosity (the PICC attributes), brings hope to our future and a real thrill. You girls rock!
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