Today has felt like one of those “silent retreats” people like Jim Carey apparently go on. I’ve fantasized about them before, but the one time I went to a spa where there were signs everywhere telling patrons to hush I can’t say I loved it. Usually I try to smile and say hello to people. Tiptoeing and whispering around in bathrobes felt awkward and the urge to giggle or gossip was too much. Anyways, this is not a post about spas or silence, but I did spend the day alone, quietly painting, and it was nice to order my own thoughts sans distraction. If your summer’s been a bit like mine, a mix of philosophical conversations around a fire paired with a side of healthy debate, maybe you can weigh in here, too. Today’s topic: should we make the kids skip school? Not just for a day, or a week. Instead of plugging up the queues for dorm accessories at IKEA, what if we packed fresh-faced seventeen year olds off to boot camp? Well, okay, not actual boot camp, but something like that. They could wear sandals probably. Here’s what I’m talking about...
It started with a trip to the Netherlands. Although my trek was a mix of research, family visits and exploration, since coming home I keep thinking about where my European heritage ends and my Canadian-ness begins. One visit in particular left a deep impression.
Dineke Vincent was the first child to receive chocolate from a Canadian soldier in the vicinity of Holten in 1945. Every year she lovingly tends to the graves of Canadians with her grandchildren, leaving flowers on May 5th and lighting candles on Christmas Eve. Visiting war cemeteries was a surreal experience, a kind of emotional time warp, because the soldiers who sacrificed so much liberating Dutch villages were from the country of my future. I felt belated gratitude on behalf of my ancestors and pride for my future (but now dead) fellow citizens. I felt like the rescued and the rescuer though I wasn’t even a twinkle in anyone’s eye for another generation.
Holten Cemetery, NL
As I’ve been immersed in stories from the war years, a few things stand out that make me wonder about the present. For example, because Holland had been neutral in the First World War, and the Great Depression had gutted European economies, at the time of the invasion in 1940, the Dutch army was skeletal. Subsequently, in the post-war years, the Dutch government re-instituted conscription, which continued until 1997. Interestingly, though the risk of war has decreased since the Cold War, some people now think conscription should be re-instated. Not for defense, but for discipline. The perception that delinquency, crime and home-grown terrorism are products of dis-engaged, unpatriotic youth is widespread. People recognize the symptoms but are quick to diagnose the cause in a plethora of ways.
I often joke that there are young people I’d love to send to military school, (like my own son whose morning routine is sloth-like) but the more I think about the present day fractures in European society and North American society, the more the idea seems less like a joke and something to chew on. I’ve been asking people online and around campfires what they think about this idea, too. Can you imagine a Canada where young people are shipped off for a year of military service at seventeen or eighteen?
Honestly, I can’t.
I don’t like the idea of teenagers holding guns or getting yelled at by someone in uniform but I like some of the fruits military training produces. (Maybe you get the same thing from playing on a hockey team, I’ll never know because I’m too lazy to drive my kids to arenas.) In any case, as I primed and painted today, I wondered, if not military service, what could Canada ask from its young people? This country gives us everything, and what do we give her back? So often our relationship is purely transactional. We figure we don’t owe Canada anything because we’re taxed so much. It’s Canada that owes us. We’re owed good schools, good doctors, paved roads… But that’s our wallet-mentality talking.
Tony Campolo, the American social scientist, preacher and writer, once said something along the lines of, “You go to school to get good grades, so you can get a good job, so you can make lots of money, so you can buy things you don’t need.”
When I first heard him express this sentiment, I was teaching privileged kids who cried if they made an A-. It bothered me that they whinged so much about their grades, because their path was so predictable. I wanted more for them than the stuff I knew they’d surround themselves with once they graduated. They had the wealth to afford voluntouristic experiences, but also the data plans to detach from the discomfort of “slumming” it. High school students in many places must complete some form of community service hours in order to graduate, but do token hours and fly-in trips to exotic locales clarify a sense of what it means to be a citizen who passionately loves their country?
We live in an age where a scarcity of adversity affects our ability to imagine a better society. Increasingly, we live urban lives, disconnected from nature, our food sources and the needs of Canadians who live outside our own narrow social milieu. Our obsession with upward mobility often means our humanity is reduced to small moments of compassion. We click sad face emojis when stories of injustice flash across our news feeds but we’re only superficially engaged with the needs of society. What’s required is human presence.
So, as I sat around the campfire this summer, a fantasy began to take root in my mind that likely every young student has felt before.
What if, this September, instead of heading off to university or college or pursuing an apprenticeship, students skipped school for a year?
You’ve heard of GAP years, where students (with money) go backpacking in Europe. What if an amazing program like Katimavik, which has seen over 35,000 volunteers in 1,000 communities, were morphed into something that goes beyond the crunchy granola set and instead of heading off to school, students served for their country for a year? Students from every background.
Students with rich parents and students from social housing projects. Students who have to defer scholarships and students who barely eek out a diploma. Students with differently abled minds and bodies, with parents who vote right and left, with parents who can't vote because they're still waiting for status.
It could be that some students find their way to the Armed Forces, it could be that some build bike parks on Native Reserves in the north. Some students might want to stay close to home and serve their countries in their own communities, but speaking from experience as a former Rotary International Exchange student, there’s something transformational about living in someone else’s community for a time, to see what’s on the other side of the wall, so to speak.
How do you care about a forest fire across the country if you’ve never smelled smoke? How do you care about an oil slick on the ocean if you’ve never been out on a boat with a fisherman? How do you care about what NAFTA means for dairy farmers if you’ve never milked a cow or thought twice about where your food comes from? How do you care about newcomers finding housing if you’ve never cold-called a hundred landlords to see if any of them will take a risk on a family that looks and sounds different from them? I'm telling you, Frosh Week isn't going to give us the citizens Canada needs.
We have prided ourselves as Canadians in our multicultural make-up, and we should be proud of it, but we should experience it intimately, too. How much better would citizens across the country relate if we could understand one another? How awesome would it be to can grade nine French forever and instead mandate cultural immersion within our own country? (It’s time, n’est ce pas?)
In this age of Truth and Reconciliation, many Canadians find themselves the recipients of Canada’s strong social fabric but with a vague sense of shame they enjoy so many benefits while First Nations people don’t have clean drinking water. I'm not talking about white saviourism, because in case you haven't noticed, Canada isn't white anymore, and this isn't about saving but learning. I can’t help but wonder, if we inserted a year of service into the equation of young people’s school trajectory, would the predictable outcome of “buying stuff we don’t need” be replaced by something better? How would a young person who has seen the country vote for the first time versus a young person looking for a tuition rebate?
Canada needs citizens who love their country passionately, who understand the diversity that makes this country unique. Canada needs a society with rich bonds of solidarity, a people who respect First Nations and welcome newcomers. We need citizens with courage and empathy.
I can already hear the naysayers.
Of course we want strong citizens, but you can’t expect seventeen year olds to go and change the world, people might say. This sounds expensive! Canada needs a workforce not an endless summer of Kum-Ba-Yah! Oh the critics.
A quick trip to Halifax this summer opened my eyes to just how young and poor previous generations of dreamers were. Imagine the ways young people might understand their origins and appreciate Canada if they spend a few months working at a modern-day Pier 21.
Young people are anxious and uncertain because we’ve kept their worlds small and safe and mediated via screens. We take our kids to Disney World as if they're going to vote for Mickey Mouse someday. Our calculations don't add up. We adults love our stuff so much we worry kids won’t be happy unless they follow the same formula we followed. But our stuff isn’t making us happy. The politics of division and the polarisation and “bunkerism” of individuals is making us angry and uneasy. We struggle to relate to people unlike ourselves and become more and more fearful of others. But, what if there were other ways?
Take students from across the country, maybe give them a paintbrush (or a shovel, computer, gymnasium, row of trees...), and then let them debate around a bonfire for a year. Skip the toga parties, public urination and binge drinking.
Get a life and then an education.
It could be awesome if we dared to make it happen.
There are some other people who have some crazy (great) ideas about what it takes to build a great nation. Have a listen to Doug Saunders talk about his new book here.