Not eaven close

Today has been a very unproductive day. I've spent several hours just looking at my screen, expecting the portfolio to magically appear out of thin air, and to my discontent it didn't. I cleaned up the two cells that I have used to work in during the semester just to have something to do.
At lunch, however I saw a debate show rerun on svt and it was actually on a quite interesting subject: Swedish school kids are using their cellphones to videotape their teachers behaving badly or themselves messing with their teachers. Of course the footage travels directly to youtube for all to watch, I guess the flicks are spread trough Playahead, the Swedish early-teen community above all others these days. The debate was flawed, as usual since nether teacher, pupils nor politicians involved took the much needed step back and tried to see a larger picture. They mainly discussed if cellphones should be banned during class or not and if there should be a law about it. The problem is of course not that the clips are made and that they get distributed online, that is just a symptom. Uploading your footage is an act of discontent, just like we tagged restrooms and walls with graffiti, and set fire to the occasional billboard during our school time. Therefore a law about it will do nothing, in very much the same way as an aspirin won’t heal a broken leg. And touching the topic I wrote about yesterday the kids already live outside the law, why should they respect a new one that clearly just works against them and does nothing but limit their personnel freedom.
And for the teachers who feel that their privacy is violated: think about that before voting for more surveillance friendly parties next election!
Now I'm going to attempt to point out the real problem, it’s likely that even I won’t be able to take enough steps back.
The kids today is a bunch of spoiled brats. They act up on elders, don’t respect morale or authority and their culture is turning further and further away from the community. They rather spend time in Azaroth then with their family, who is working late anyway. When the urge to leave home and explore during evenings and weekends arise there is nothing to do for them except some shopping. All of them can always communicate with each other in a way neither parents or teachers can identify with, making their friends not only more important then family but also their tribe. Their main loyalty will always be to the tribe, and none of us can get into it. The tribe is disgraced, feared and ignored by the adult society and the Tribe has decided that they make their own rules, since the existing rules only apply to a world that don't give a shit.
A few summers ago I worked on a after school facility (Fritids in Swedish), I and about half of the other employees could get across to the kids and actually communicate with them, teach them something about the world in the best days, just checking to see how they felt on most days. One day I found the only older employee who had a real connection with the kids sitting down with a few of the kids who had what we sometimes call behavior or attitude problems. Officially he was teaching them to read since their teacher in school had failed at this, but there was not much reading going on, they were sitting down and talking like equals. I asked him what thy where doing "I'm doing what their parents should have done, I'm raising them." he replied.
And that is what we all should do, that or get ready for the revolution. Everyone older than 19 will be shot. Persons who represent power and ignorance will be molested, and then shot. And we all deserve it.