Talked to some youth today

A couple weeks ago, I received an email from a high school asking me to come and talk during a “career day”. I chose not to reply because I just didn’t think it was a good fit for me as a business coach. I just didn’t think I had a valid message for these young people for their career day. About 1pm of the day before the event I got a call. I explained the circumstances, yet the coordinator assured me that “how” I got to where I was today was a valid message. I acquiesced and scrambled to make it happen since I strongly believe that supporting our young adults is an important activity for any adult.

So I went. I was given a schedule that I would talk 3 different times to different sets of kids, sorry young adults in a classroom and off I went.

It was a disaster.

Or not. I have no clue. And probably never will have. I do know that by the end of the 3rd group, I could wring out the shirt from me sweating so much!

The kids were loud and proud. There were about 30 to a group and they were busy chatting with their friends. I had no control. OK, I’m not a parent, so yeah I was racing down the rapids in a sinking boat without a paddle.

The topic that eventually got traction was reactive on my part. It was about respect, it was about being responsible for their own behavior because they aren’t children any more. I asked them what careers did they want and warned them that their behaviors, not necessarily others could prevent them from achieving their dreams and hopes. And as a business coach, it would be not be good thing or a smart thing to exhibit behaviors that might shut doors of opportunity before they even had a chance.

I also talked about adults. like teachers and parents and yes even a certain business coach would like to help them to succeed, but they had to meet us half way. I made it clear that I understood that I was a white guy standing in front of a class of black kids, and I wasn’t sure what that meant, except that I didn’t care about skin color, what I did care about was them having the opportunity to be who and what they wanted to be. And that there would be a whole lot of people thinking the same way, willing to help, willing to support, but they still had to help us help them and it started now. I guess it was frustration on my part, I guess it was tough love. I honestly don’t know.

But they listened. Or more accurately they were quiet. Whether they listened or not as I mentioned before, I have no clue. And what happened, by no means was their fault.

I freely admit that I was wrung out and while the school graciously offered me lunch before I headed out, I just needed to find some quiet place and think.

And I think back to a conference I attended in DC last year sponsored by IBM that was on Global Leadership. It consisted of mucky-mucks from IBM and some other Fortune 100 companies, medium and small businesses (I guess small business was my niche). It had academia from major schools, public schools and not for profits. One of the subjects that blasted thru the conference where emotions ran high was our educational system, our kids and were we preparing them for the future. From the business perspective, it was a pretty strong feeling that we were falling (and have been for some time) behind.

I then recently attended a conference here in Chicago, held by DePaul centered on Global Learning, somewhat the same idea and scope and I was curious to check it out. This conference was more Chicago based with the people attending and certainly was much heavier academia with a light scattering of business people (like me!). And interestingly enough many of the same concerns were brought up at this conference as at the previous unrelated one.

But in both cases, it seemed like everyone wanted to stay in their own boxes. The business conference seemed to look at the learning problem as something the academic’s need to resolve. And the academia conference was looking at how learning (even though the main speaker talked about “social learning”, where we learn from a wide range of sources today) could still fit into the Bachelors/Masters Degrees boxes. After spending time with the kids today (and other times) I’m looking at the fact that we are still primarily teaching the same subjects for the most part the same way (with some computer add ins) even though the world today is a much different world.

So what IS the answer for the youth of today to get ready for the challenges of tomorrow? I admit, I don’t have a clue. What I do know is that all these different groups, academia, business, government and so on, not only don’t appear to be on the same page, I don’t think we’re reading the same book!

People observed me frustrated about what happened today and were concerned if I was ok. That’s a nice thought, but not a concern of mine. What I was concerned about was that I was given an opportunity to help the youth, perhaps provide them some insights so that they can successfully create their own future. That was my concern, still is and I don’t know if I achieved that with my “tough love” presentation.

So perhaps I failed these kids today. But I look at the conferences I’ve been to and the experiences that I have been having lately, and I think there is an awful lot of people, programs and agencies that are failing our kids today. And that doesn’t comfort me to be one of the many. It doesn’t comfort me at all.