Every now and then, someone who you think would know better says something so ridiculous that it's all you can do to keep the car between the lines. Especially when what is said is coming through your car radio during afternoon rush traffic. On a North Carolina radio station today, and which one or who said it immaterial, a guest remarked that business leaders looking for the next big thing would do well to talk to a middle-schooler since, apparently, that age group is filled with sages of the future.
The guest's rationale was that young people are marinated in technology from such a young age that surely any new development would be somehow related to the wired world. Maybe, but we're also the country that is graduating an alarming number of high school students who spend their first year of college taking remedial work. They did so well in math and English the first time that they are paying for the privilege of doing it again. I'm not so sure my company's next great path is going to be outlined by someone who can barely conjugate a verb, or knows what conjugate even means, let alone by a person whose next great challenge is going to be dealing with teenage skin.
Look, I am fascinated by the young's comfort around new gadgets and widgets, but let's be honest: gadgets and widgets are all they know. It's like previous generations being able to manage hand tools. And before this sounds like one of those old fart rants about the yoots, it's not. Kids are products of their environment and part of that environment is a school system that is largely failing them, a system that, curiously enough, is run by us, people who should know better.
Earlier this month, Ben Carson spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast about how his mother instilled in him and his brother a love of reading. What kid reads anymore? At least, what kid reads an actual book that has to do with something other than vampires, witches, or romantic fantasies? JK Rowling had a great idea in creating the Harry Potter series of books as a means for encouraging children to, well, pick up books. Then came the Twilight series. But is anyone reading anything of substance? A history book? A biography? Even a non-fiction book that does not involve the supernatural?
The biggest hole of all in the radio guest's summation was ignoring how critical thinking is missing from much of society, the adults included, to be sure. People talk to each other, in large part, with talking points they don't always understand themselves, gathered from news outlets that confirm their existing biases. If the parents can't be bothered to have their dogma challenged, it's a bit presumptuous to think a 12-year old is going to.
The future will hold things you and I can only imagine, and probably some things that we can't. A few of those will be developed and designed by someone who is 12 today. But before then, a good deal of other innovation is going to come by people who see a problem in search of an answer and a market niche in search of filling. And not to be too hard on the guest, but there really is more to life than technology. The tools make many things more convenient, but they are not the alpha and omega of life. Instead of worrying about how to appeal to middle-school children, entrepreneurs might want to focus on people who have disposable income, people whose businesses could benefit from whatever new comes along, and people whose lives will be somehow improved from innovation. Let the middle-school kids be middle-school kids. And encourage them to think. Preferably for themselves.
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