Where have all the kids gone?

On the way home from work these days, I notice that there are rarely children playing in the fields. As a foreigner in Seoul, I ponder that young people face challenges such as language barriers that can make it harder for them to make friends.

By Gouranga G. Das

On the way home from work these days, I notice that there are rarely children playing in the fields. As a foreigner in Seoul, I ponder that young people face challenges such as language barriers that can make it harder for them to make friends.

But on closer consideration, I figured out that even if they have the ability to speak the same language or are of the same ethnic group, free time for mingling is becoming increasingly rare. Indeed, this is true almost everywhere.

In my youth, during the 1970s-80s, when I was a school student in the cosmopolitan city of Calcutta in India, things were not completely different; but also, they were not entirely like the situation today. And obviously, the current circumstances are not a reflection on the kids.

Remember ``The Kid’’ movie by Charlie Chaplin: hard-hit by recession, penury compelled a mother to abandon her unwanted child in the street from where he was adopted by a tramp living in abject poverty. The wretched kid had no one to properly care for him, but he was involved in mischief as an aide to his “father.”

He indulged in fun and frolics, which culminated in a street fight, the benefit of which was to cause the now-rich-mother to reappear bearing toys for him to play with. The film showed the innocence of childhood and the importance of social well-being for a child’s growth ― mentally and physically ― as the dream scene in the movie portrayed symbolically the absolute imperative of having resources in abundance and for their judicious use.

In modern times, children ― despite abundant care, a profusion of amenities, broad choices ― are still de facto ``alone.’’ ``The kids’’ are, therefore, missing. Why? They are kept inside ― either in their homes, or private academies, or coaching/training schools of all sorts, or are hooked to electronic gadgets such as smartphones, i-phones, i-pads, i-pods, the Internet or Nintendo, you name it ― and hence, are shying away from the vast world that awaits them.

They spend time in academies, or play different sorts of indoor or outdoor games in swimming pools, tennis courts, piano or art schools, and soccer clubs ― all in an atmosphere without experiencing nature and its soothing effects. They are busy doing homework and getting ready for the next school day. During their free time, they are glued to these ``smart’’ machines that have the potential of producing some distinctly “un-smart” consequences.

Why do they withdraw in such a way? They have to join the rat race, in order to participate in competitive capitalism. The rat race demands each person becomes a jack-of-all-trades. Competition is not bad at all; in fact, it is conducive for productive capitalism. However, shying away from things that nurture creativity, independent thinking and open learning is counter-productive. True education hinges on imagination, independent thinking and interaction with fellow cohorts.

This kind of education and skill is not going to sustain in long run when all the low-hanging fruits of society are exhausted. For picking fruit hanging higher up, one must travel down a path on which success in a true sense depends on an individual’s intellectual capability as well as their ingenuity. Time has become increasingly costly, not because of the ephemeral nature of ``time’’ per se, but because of its relative scarcity. ``Homo economicus’’ strives hard to make the best use of limited time. However, time spent is not exactly proportional to performance and merit.

Rote learning is devoid of the true worth of education and fails to develop skills. In a society in which hierarchies are strong, there is a noticeable correlation between social status and mental health. A person can feel better thanks to an improvement in his or hers relative ranking. A recent study on gene expressions and social ranking at the University of Chicago, quoted in The Economist (April 14 2012), concluded that low social status causes misery through its adverse effects, and leads to unhealthy living. Unbridled competition makes this worse and practicing this from childhood is detrimental to a child’s upbringing.

The logic is simple: when people are positioned in the lower pecking order of a society, it drives their social status down and then, being hard pressed, they work their way up which leads to, following biochemical responses, epigenetic changes expressed by how people’s genes affect the immune system. Thus, too much competition instills in a kid’s psyche evil effects at a tender age and hence, germinates seeds of despair, misery, and unhappiness. This throttles the quest for self-reliance, and self-realization. Often, this is triggered by pressure caused by a system that produces sub-optimal performances. For instance, grade inflation, in which higher than deserved grades are awarded for comparable educational performances in exams, has dire economic consequences.

Specifically, even though kids are not seemingly cleverer than before, they get higher grades so that a ``C’’ grade before in the 70s-80s has become equivalent to an ``A’’ grade now. In the lexicon of economics, it sends out the wrong signal and distorts the relative value of human capital. Employers find it a challenge to search for real talent and identify the best brains. Cherry-picking is not easy. This leads to more intense competition because the higher grades induce the kids to be dragged into intense competition ― a sense of ``feeling-good’’ based on a ‘’false-positive’’ sense of ability.

All these suppress the ``true’’ worth of learning and culminate in an unhealthy syndrome affecting child health and mental development. As we know that it is best to pursue ``mens sana in corpore sano,’’ (A sound mind in a healthy body) and that education is an aspiration of perfection in people, let us embrace the philosophy and morals of true education for life-long learning, and bring kids back, without losing them to a harsh world of envy and enmity.

The writer is professor of economics at Hanyang University’s Erica Campus.