Liberal humanism is seemingly in decline as children, through year after year of increasingly instrumental, procedurally rigorous and formalized education towards some predetermined outcome become at best numb to their own social context and at worst play a game until they complete the passage. Worst because how awful is it that our children waste their most imaginative and exploratory years while they are being bored and sterilized of creativity in industrial classrooms. They are mollifying us, the adults, by their paying attention and performing well in class, the students have long given up fighting ‘city hall’. They are biding their time waiting for graduation and freedom before they move forward unencumbered by the past, their parents and other adults creatively making a new future for themselves.

Politicians, education administrators and any adult interested in youth say they want imagination, exploration and creativity in our classrooms but these lofty ideals are squelched by formal examinations, academic rigour in even the most nonacademic classes which prevent teachers and students from truly and honestly venturing into the unknown territories of creativity. Accountable results, achieved through rigorous attention to procedure and instruments, that reflect desired outcomes curtails creativity in all but the most simple uses of creativity to attain a predetermined outcome. Recapitulation of the past is all that is possible with predetermined outcomes. Imagination, exploration and creativity do not have predetermined outcomes and must be free and unfettered to progress.

We can expect a citizenry less critical, less engaged, less healthy, less creative and more unlikely to vote as we expect more obedience, attention to procedure and competitiveness among our students in school in what we adults figure is a more competitive world. These attributes may be good for us today but are covering our future in a thick secure blanket that will inevitably smother us. These children are harmed and our society is harmed by such static and undemocratic ethics. But these youth are learning and biding their time.

Youth are waiting for the moment when they can collectively work to change the world. They are the largest most educated group known. Baby boomers had to learn as they grew and created their society. Youth today have grown up in this diverse and ever technologically changing world. Youth today are globally connected, both politically and economically are more liberal and compassionate and humanistic than ever before. They have seen how ravaged the world is and are instantly made aware of it. They understand difference, are more attuned to acceptance than tolerance and see the world as a whole rather than disparate parts as the current generation in power do. Many of the institutions built by the boomers are seen as extraneous, useless to the modern young person. Savvy political leaders today are using the new methods of communication and social media to galvanize youth to action. But many leaders are using new methods to maintain old ways. This will fail in time. A new world is approaching.

Learning is not simply achieving high test scores or final grades, or blind obedience, or guided inquiry. A good, active and engaged citizen is not necessarily a satisfied client as the neo-con, neo-lib system imagines one to be. My only hope is that as the students become more worldly, more connected, more mobile and more understanding of the hypocrisy youth are being taught, that they envision democracy exists somewhere out there, move towards it on their own and not worry about the edifice created and maintained by the previous generations whose single goal today is to maintain it at all costs. What has been created so hopefully out of World War 2 is no longer democratic, creative or hopeful. The single greatest hope for liberal humanism, for it is far from dead, is our youth.