Don’t be too quick to worry about lack of interest by youth

Are kids today less ethical than the kids of 30 years ago?

In the spring of 2000, with a grant from the Washington attorney general’s office and help from graduate students at Gonzaga University, the BBB took our ethics workshop on the road to more than 80 schools in Eastern Washington. There were some amazing classes – bright students, ready to debate and clearly interested in life. Then there were those that exhibited the interest of the proverbial bumps on a log.

Time in front of the near comatose classes left me worried about the future for all of us. The students’ lack of curiosity, unwillingness to take a stand and fear of speaking up was sad. I left thinking we were creating a generation of lemmings, just waiting to be told how to think and feel as they blindly run off the cliff.

Currently, my husband is teaching a very interactive class at a local university and expresses much the same concern about how difficult it is to engage this group of young adults. We wonder, don’t they care? Are they so accustomed to so many stimuli that simple debate is sleep-inducing? We look back to the days when we were this age, and you couldn’t keep us from expressing an opinion about almost everything. We passionately debated and defended political and social issues at the drop of a hat.

M.E.A.D. alternative school was a blast of fresh air when I spent a morning there in February. Let me take you into the classroom:

You and your friends are at your favorite coffee shop. You normally gather there Friday after school, just to wind down and enjoy a latte. You take the order to the counter with everyone’s money and wait to pay. The bill comes to $9.85, and you hand the cashier a $10 bill. He returns change of $10.15, as if you had paid with a $20 bill. What do you do?

In small groups, the kids worked on different challenges; this was just one of them. There was lively discussion about keeping the money – they charge so darned much for coffee drinks anyway, – we’ve spent a whole lot of time and money at this place, they owe us, etc. There also were comments like, “How could we ever think of cheating this place that takes good care of us and treats us with respect!” Listening to the students rationalize the decision that suited them best was a real lesson in how easy it can be to get caught up in the “What is best for me and to heck with everyone else” line of thinking.

With six small groups, we had a room full of diverse thinking. These situations we place the students in are quite varied, and a couple of them are a real challenge. As I walked around and listened to them try to reach consensus, I was pleasantly surprised at how engaged and intelligent the exchange was. They were all vocal, thoughtful and receptive to discussion. How refreshing.

Back in the classroom, the small groups chose a leader who read their scenario to the whole class and explained what action they decided to take. This is where the fun began. After each leader shared the decision, I threw a twist into the situation, usually altering the relationship with one of the stakeholders to see if they changed their action.

In the coffee shop scenario, my twist is that the cashier is a member of your group of friends and has only been working at the coffee shop for a couple of weeks. You know he will need to make up the difference from his own pocket. Does that change the decision? If so, was the decision ethical in the first place?

By the time we worked through eight situations, the M.E.A.D. students were anticipating relationships and thinking deeply about their actions. They talked about ramifications of decisions that they think only affect them, and how wrong they could be.

It was really an experience to watch them quickly come to the conclusion that everyone is someone’s father, sister or brother and that everything they do impacts others. And they loved talking about it, listening to each other and accepting varied solutions.

Thank you, M.E.A.D. students, for making my week.