Readers of Toronto’s Globe and Mail—citizens most easily
embarrassed and most thoroughly informed about all that could go wrong—were treated
to a scary headline yesterday and an editorial today about a massive Toronto school study
on teenage stress. While most survey participants stoutly insisted that they
felt good about themselves and were "reasonably happy," the survey discovered that
73% of the Toronto’s high school students “worried about their future.”
This high level of distress apparently
came as a worrying surprise. A senior manager at the school board confessed
he’d assumed that the students had a “happy-go-lucky existence.” The Globe’s editorial board urged parents
and officials not to overreact.
It’s unseemly on Valentine’s
Day to be unmoved by widespread anxiety or think of telling anyone today to "suck it up." Nevertheless, there is much that is good and reassuring about this
stressful state of affairs.
The tough New York comedian
Lily Tomlin put it perfectly:
“Reality is the leading cause of stress among those
in touch with it.”
Toronto wants to be a tough,
world-class city, like New York, really. Tomlin would likely be impressed by
the study’s findings. She’d likely be flattering, if she heard about it.
Despite illusions about
living in a more humane and gentle society and in a less hated country than
that behemoth to the south, it’s striking to see how intensely young people in
Toronto actually think about the future and their yet-uncertain place within it.
Clearly, modern education’s concern for student morale has interfered with
their worries.
History hasn’t skipped
Toronto and moved west. Young Torontonians are worried because they’re still
ambitious. They’re stressed because they could fail. And they could fail
because they’re still free and tempted to do better.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete