My last column “Inform – Don’t Terrify” November 2022, instructed parents to inform their children and, at the same time, to instill hope for their future. How is this to be done in addition to parental education? The schools have an obligation to teach history.

 

As a society the earth’s population has suffered terrible despair, only to recover and make things better. Our global society has recovered from the plague, the pandemic of Spanish flu, a world-wide financial depression of the 1930’s, World Wars I and II, the Cold War and Covid-19 pandemic. In addition the United States survived the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. None of these crises proved to be the end of society. We recovered, and moved on.

 

If we do not know history or if our children and young adults do not appreciate the history of mankind, they will not understand the resiliency and adaptability of the human race.

 

They will feel hopeless and destined to failure. Society always rallies at the last minute, whether it be as a response to global warming, drought, War or pandemic. The history of mankind portrays society as reactive, not proactive. Man snatches victory from defeat. The history lesson teaches us that we should never lose hope. A generation without hope is a lost generation marked by depression and possible suicide.
 

Let the study of history and the action of parents who inform their children properly erase the chance of producing a lost generation. A human without hope is a human without a reason to live.

Remember, the United States of America is a country that survived a Civil war, the great depression and World War II. We will react properly, maybe a little slowly but nevertheless correctly and overcome climate change, drought and forest fires. We must not produce a lost generation.