A New Campaign

Epiphany: (Noun) A sudden intuitive leap of understanding, especially through an ordinary but striking occurrence.

I leapt the other day. I was sitting at my desk at home with the radio on in the background. Throughout my two hours of work, I heard the phrase “Children are our future” at least four times during a conversation with an educational analyst who was dismayed at the lack of funding and standards in American schools. I found myself agreeing with this analyst one moment and then, struck with an “intuitive understanding” I realized he had it all wrong.

Children are our future. How often do we hear that phrase? How often do we use it? My firm belief in that expression has driven my work as a teacher for my entire career. In a time of social and political anxiety, I find hope in my students, in the knowledge that they will be the compassionate leaders I long for; that the world will be a better place in their thoughtful hands. Sitting at my desk, correcting papers and planning lessons while half-listening to the radio, my epiphany came fast and strong as I imagine most do. We’ve set ourselves up for failure by doing what my father always warned against: Putting off until tomorrow what we can do today.

Americans have a paradoxical relationship with time. We attend Zen retreats to learn to live “in the now,” but spend hours overworking, saving money, and acquiring the “things” we think will make us happy someday. We schedule our weekend in date books or on Blackberries at the same time we reflect on past mistakes. We race from one place to the next in an effort to “get there” wherever there may be, not really paying attention to the journey and then spend thousands of dollars in therapy to learn how to slow down.

In America, the future is both motivator and excuse, the thing we work towards at the same time fear. We put off homework (remember cramming for the test the night before?), we delay scheduling doctor appointments, paying taxes, cleaning the cat box, flossing our teeth, writing thank you notes, getting to the gym and on and on and on. We procrastinate and in the same breath grow impatient with slow drivers, congested traffic, grocery clerks, long lines, technology, arrogance, and with impatience itself. We rush and multi-task our way through life torn between working too hard and not getting enough done. Our lives are filled with doing and avoiding, and in this oxymoronic relationship with time we throw out the phrase, “Children are our future.”

No, children are our NOW! We can’t wait until tomorrow or in the future of tomorrows. Children are not bills to be paid or traffic to race through. They are not commodities to fund or employees to promote. They are not cargo to move or packages to pick up. They are not the destination, they are the journey; they are the now we pay money to find.

If we continue to put our children’s lives in the undefined future, we avoid our daily obligations on both personal and political levels. A futuristic commitment holds no weight; it’s too easy to disregard the consequences of our daily actions. By saying children are our future we avoid the magnificent and daunting responsibility of raising thoughtful, compassionate, and critical citizens of the world right now.

Children are our now. Say it. Hear yourself say it. Better yet, hear yourself commit to it. Do you feel the shift? Do you feel the urgency? Imagine how priorities might alter if we made such a commitment on a state and national level. Demand that our leaders say it and hear themselves saying it, committing to it.

Children are our now.

Demand an epiphany.

Now.