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Being cool doesn`t mean going berserk: The Hindustan Times
New Delhi, Nov 16: A young prince becomes a robbery and rape suspect. So is he just another deviant, or a product of these troubled times? Is it that the people who say the youth of today are utterly amoral, too materialistic, too much in a hurry to get everything instantly are right?
New Delhi, Nov 16: A young prince becomes a robbery and rape suspect. So is he just another deviant, or a product of these troubled times? Is it that the people who say the youth of today are utterly amoral, too materialistic, too much in a hurry to get everything instantly are right?
“To succeed in today’s world,” says Springdales school (Dhaula Kuan campus) principal Jyoti Bose, “you really have to be somebody…You don’t have to be good, you have to be so good, and there are so many people who are so good.” It makes for a stressed generation, says Bose.
He is director of a school-based pilot project on holistic health called Expressions. This has been on since 2000 in 110 schools in and around Delhi. The stress has telling implications. The interim report says 10-15 per cent of school-going children in the age group 5-17 years suffer from symptoms of maladjustment and emotional difficulties of a degree that calls for professional help.
Clinical Psychologist Divya Prasad, also at VIMHANS, says with early onset of puberty “everything is happening sooner…the issues that used to come at 25 now come at 18”.
“This generation is always on edge,” says Delhi Public School (R.K. Puram) Principal Shyama Chona. “Emotionally, they are too charged. They are full of complexes.”
Yet these negative aspects really show through in only a visible minority. “The outrageous 10 per cent hog the limelight,” says Prasad. “A lot of people will say that today’s youth are just go-getters, but I’m not one of them,” says Bose.
The children these days are more intelligent, more thoughtful, better spoken but less well read than those of 10 years ago, she says. This generation has seen the most change that she can recall.
Chona says the youngsters fall into two broad categories: “One kind which is single-minded, motivated achievers, and a second, usually born with a silver spoon in the mouth, to which nothing has value.”
Their intelligence is nowhere in doubt. And the same forces that push a few individuals to the dark side also propel many to all-round success.
Asked to name their role model, a group of Springdales students shoot back: “In which field? We carry different role models in every field.” The ideal, says Class 12 student Bacchus Barua, is “a little bit of Sachin + Albert Einstein, with a little of Schwarzenegger thrown in”. “You want to be the best in every field, to push the limits, to excel,” he says.
Every field means partying too. “You want to reach that perfect amalgamation of socialising and achieving,” says his batchmate Kriti Pant. She is very clear “binging is not cool”.
In DPS R.K. Puram, the same themes recur. “There are nerds and there are party types, but if there is an all-rounder, that’s cool,” is the consensus among a group of students.
And the same maturity shows through. Headgirl Aliya Puri says, “I guess we are all affected by what goes on around us, but we don’t let that run our lives.” Even if, as headboy Tishampati Sen says, “All we want is everything.”
“To succeed in today’s world,” says Springdales school (Dhaula Kuan campus) principal Jyoti Bose, “you really have to be somebody…You don’t have to be good, you have to be so good, and there are so many people who are so good.” It makes for a stressed generation, says Bose.
He is director of a school-based pilot project on holistic health called Expressions. This has been on since 2000 in 110 schools in and around Delhi. The stress has telling implications. The interim report says 10-15 per cent of school-going children in the age group 5-17 years suffer from symptoms of maladjustment and emotional difficulties of a degree that calls for professional help.
Clinical Psychologist Divya Prasad, also at VIMHANS, says with early onset of puberty “everything is happening sooner…the issues that used to come at 25 now come at 18”.
“This generation is always on edge,” says Delhi Public School (R.K. Puram) Principal Shyama Chona. “Emotionally, they are too charged. They are full of complexes.”
Yet these negative aspects really show through in only a visible minority. “The outrageous 10 per cent hog the limelight,” says Prasad. “A lot of people will say that today’s youth are just go-getters, but I’m not one of them,” says Bose.
The children these days are more intelligent, more thoughtful, better spoken but less well read than those of 10 years ago, she says. This generation has seen the most change that she can recall.
Chona says the youngsters fall into two broad categories: “One kind which is single-minded, motivated achievers, and a second, usually born with a silver spoon in the mouth, to which nothing has value.”
Their intelligence is nowhere in doubt. And the same forces that push a few individuals to the dark side also propel many to all-round success.
Asked to name their role model, a group of Springdales students shoot back: “In which field? We carry different role models in every field.” The ideal, says Class 12 student Bacchus Barua, is “a little bit of Sachin + Albert Einstein, with a little of Schwarzenegger thrown in”. “You want to be the best in every field, to push the limits, to excel,” he says.
Every field means partying too. “You want to reach that perfect amalgamation of socialising and achieving,” says his batchmate Kriti Pant. She is very clear “binging is not cool”.
In DPS R.K. Puram, the same themes recur. “There are nerds and there are party types, but if there is an all-rounder, that’s cool,” is the consensus among a group of students.
And the same maturity shows through. Headgirl Aliya Puri says, “I guess we are all affected by what goes on around us, but we don’t let that run our lives.” Even if, as headboy Tishampati Sen says, “All we want is everything.”