by Sage Taylor Richardson

Created on: August 25, 2008

In many ways, yes, our society is giving much control of the educational system to the students, and their parents, rather than to the faculty and administrators, where it ultimately belongs. A young person's education is influenced, supported, and successfully accomplished by a myriad of factors, one of which is a balanced ratio of authority and responsibility. When parents and teachers work together with the students to not only teach and guide them, but also allow them to practice making decisions and living with the consequences of those decisions under the safety net of responsible adults, they will hopefully gain the tools they also need to mature into healthy and responsible adults themselves.

Teachers, parents, and students must each be involved in ensuring a student's potential for success. In the end, however, the student will have to deal with the consequences of his or her choices to make the most of the opportunities afforded, whether large or small, through his or her years of education. Not only in the obvious ways of "success" career and income, but as a human being. I fear as each generation becomes more selfish and shallow and focused on materialism and instant gratification, society as a whole suffers a pendulum sway towards extreme individuality and away from any sense of real community. Are we keeping ourselves emotionally immature by our need to have our own way in all circumstances and how is this affecting subsequent generations?

With this thought in mind, perhaps the biggest problem does not lie with the teachers or the students, but with the parents themselves. Isn't it a selfish immaturity that puts pressure on others, including our children, to satisfy our needs and wants? Parents care too much about their children's opinions of them and try to buy their love and friendship rather than getting their psychological needs met elsewhere. The child's job isn't to make the parents feel better about themselves. Parents are far too overprotective of their children's delicate psyches and not realistically facing the main goal of successful parenting to raise and release into the world adults capable of a healthy blend of independence and relationship with other human beings. They seem to want to keep their children dependent on them for their own ego satisfaction and sense of worth and baby them far into adulthood.

This isn't normal or healthy. Even in the animal kingdom, among creatures like wolves that survive and thrive in family groups,

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