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HotTub Marmalade's avatar

"But what of today’s youth? They seem to have little awareness of history..." Correct.

I live in central Florida, here in the U.S.. Last week I went to get a haircut at my local barbershop. Talking to the barber (who's over 70) while he was cutting my hair, we got into a discussion about the USA's involvement in the Vietnam war (he enlisted. I didn't; luckily for me, the draft ended in 1973, when I was 16).

Anyway, during our discussion, he said, "you want to hear something really astounding?" Of course, I said yes. He proceeded to tell me that two weeks earlier, he had a young boy in for a haircut, who's a senior at the local high school. The barber started discussing the Vietnam war with the youngster, when the youngster interrupted him and asked, "What's Vietnam?" The barber was stunned. The kid had no idea about Vietnam.

I was stunned too when the barber related that story to me.

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Miriam Maxander PhD's avatar

The tiny dopamine vending machine glued to the hand has much to answer for in my opinion. The 3 year Corona Chronicle has just accentuated that feedback loop. It will be a rare youth now that prefers a tome and the coming surge of blood brain barrier (dysfunction) due to the COVID injections, might make this habit further rare. Our four teens respect my rule of no phones upstairs (where we sleep) or at the dinner table, which has created a little bit more space for book reading and discussion of same. Schools are dangerous places (it seems) and browsing Project Veritas archives have illustrated some nefarious actors at play masquerading as teachers running their own woke agenda's concurrently with the curriculum. History and what has brought us to this point in time doesn't seem to have relevance apparently, so a chapter excerpt of a novel doesn't surprise me one bit. Well done to that young lady and thank goodness for her intrinsic motivation.

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