General Discussion
Dear Young People
Whilst I understand your cynicism in terms of the political system I think you nontheless have to wake up to the fact that unless you are deemed to be people who will vote then the political parties will, on the whole, ignore you. Political parties after all woo voters, that is the way they get into power. So...if on the whole you and people like you are thought not to vote why bother with doing things that will be of benefit to you?
Wake up the youth of this country!You have only your lack of jobs, tuition fees, high rents/house prices etc to lose.
Be aware, be very aware that a General Election is only some 17 months or so away.
With love
Lynne
PS Here's an extract from an article from today's Guardian
"At present in Britain teenagers are bearing the brunt of an artificially skewed austerity: 18.6% of the 18-24 cohort are now unemployed, rising to 35.5% among 16- to 17-year-olds. David Blanchflower, a former Bank of England economist, has spelt out the cost of this among youth: depression, self-harming, suicidal thoughts. With cuts to the future jobs fund and the education maintenance allowance, and mooted curbs on benefits to the under-25s, teenagers are being hammered by the coalition. This is a national disgrace. The young are being told that they have no value. That's it: know your place. Quite apart from the human cost, this is both an ideological and wilful abandonment of any investment in the future.
It is a cruel irony that, just as commercialised youth culture seems everywhere – appealing to all ages, and making untold millions for media corporations – the demographic on which this was once based is being excluded from society. Without financial power or overt political affiliations, young people are too often ignored in this costive age. Occasionally they are castigated by their elders for not being radical enough, which is unfair and absurd.
The "teenager" has proved a highly workable rite of passage for the past 70 years. In the recent crisis, however, this definition has become problematic: where consumerism once promised liberation it has now become the engine of an unsustainable lifestyle. It may be that there has to be a redefinition of adolescence in the years to come for youth to begin moving away from pure materialism. That is one possibility.
Right now the status of teenagers is an urgent problem. G Stanley Hall was right: adolescents represent and embody the future. Yet the current coalition model only promises entropy and decay. In contrast to this betrayal of hope and potential, there needs to be a new political and cultural vision of youth that allows teenagers to speak for themselves, grants them social value, and recognises their ability to find innovative solutions to current problems: indeed, to conceive of how the future could be."
I dont know if you have been watching BBC 3 Bad Education....its awful to see how unattentive teenagers are in school now...laying on their desks asleep if bored. No rrespect at all.....talking over teachers.. I think the teachers are far too young. There was a 23 year old teacher trying to bond with her clsss but also trying to be in charge. When the head came in the class, an older man, only then did they behave a little better. We are not doing them any favours with these young teachers. They need to be far more educated and experienced at least 35 with some form of authority. How can you send them out in the world with such sloppy attitudes?
Standards have really dropped yet seems acceptable. The film industry this week is now going to allow F word etc in films 12 and over because teenagers use it so much. The film makers are so to blame like Shameless and Big Broither...no wonder kids dont know any better. So they will be swearing at their employer if they get one. Have you noticed word 'like'...'like' is constantly used when they are chatting away...so gets on my nerves.
Lynne.. they cant be bothered to vote...I would not actually let them anyway until aged 21 when they are a little wiser. I know Ed wants them to vote at 16....we can all guess why lol.
I do not see they have ambitions really ..most seem more interested in partying and clubbing, Im not surprsied the kids in school fall asleep on their desk. I assume they are on X box in their room for hours! ..or are they studying hmmm.
@Lynne negative is wonderings middle name @wondering just like the bullingdon club then drink drugs and rock and roll
some refuse to face facts! ..notice you are unable to contribute a sensible comment...so you clearly have to agree with what I said lol
Ive given up trying to give sensible comments, and I totally disagree with your version of todays youth, weve all been young at some time and we were no different. Its a small minority that give the youngsters a bad name. Ive worked in a school and never saw what this tv programme portrays, its reality tv for gods sake designed to entertain and shock, and give people a warped view just like all the other trash you watch
Just had this week's Dawlish Post delivered.
page 5 - article about an 18 year old gaining a place on the FA Youth Council
page 12 - articles about Luke Friend and young bands playing at the Lemonfest
Sports pages - articles about various sport activities of the under 12s, under 13s, under 15s, under 16s, under 19s concerning football and swimming.
Back Page - article about a Bickington 14 year old who is in the 14 strong squad Devon Youth Cricket Development Tour going to South Africa next month.
I find young folk know what's going on they have a grip on climate change and they are more switched on than we think and there political perspective is not muddied by the past. Our future is in there hands maybe they will start a new party and bring politics into the 21st century.
Take a trip to Dartmoor when the next Ten Tors challenge is on in May, that'll inspire any doubters.
Most of our young people are no different to how young people have always been. They want time with their friends, they want to leave school and enter the adult world, they want to push boundaries and they want a future. Those things can surely be applied to most preceding generations.
What has been different since I left school (30 years ago, oh heck!) is the current assumption that all young people must aspire to attend university. The emphasis on this within the education system is far too heavily biased.
We need to get back to basics, push apprenticeships, encourage the less academically able to focus on practical skills - there's a role for just about everyone in society. I am aware that the community college does vocational training but that is viewed by many students as for the 'thick' pupils and is not valued by them as a real option.
Once our young people are taught proper 'life' lessons at school (and I was at a school that taught all 15/16 year olds to write a cheque and wire a plug) then an interest in the community they live in and how they shape that community will follow.
Totally agree Duckileaks, this is what I was trying to say on the minimum wage thread, but you have put it much better 
An interesting if somewhat long article
http://www.newstatesman.com/2013/10/defrauding-young-britain
The problem is things have changed in 30 years. Our heavy industries have disappeard coal mines, ship building, steel works, car manufacturers, and so have the apprentices a shipyard would have carpenters, cabinet makers, electrical engineers, fabricators, and the list goes on. So when all these skills disappeared we where told work hard at school go to university and we will teach you new skills so we now have kids who's options are at 16 as many A stars as possible at 18 as many A stars as possible and then university to get a degree that will probably do them no good at all.
Leatash - I don't have knowledge of all the industries you list but you are wrong about car manufacturing, as a fairly recent Top Gear programme proved when they filled The Mall in London with British made cars, heavy plant, motorbikes, tractors and formula one vehicles.
Britain is a country of entrepreneurs, small industry and business is doing reasonably well.
But how are our young people going to do well if they don't have basic skills, e.g letter writing, phone skills etc
Duckileaks@ There used to be 67 car manufacturers in the UK there where names like Hillman,Standard,Sunbeam,Jowett,and Wolseley but to name a few and there where some great cars made and some real rubbish to. We had closed shop working the eventual downfall of the working man but for all the bad young peouple had jobs in fact the day I left school I had the option of four aprentaships I decided to join the Army but there where jobs and plenty of them.
Lynne, I feel sorry for the young people of today because they have and are inheriting the aftermath of over 30 years of the British adult electorate voting for ultra right wing Tory Government's including New Labour 1997- 2010.
As a result of this, there is no alternative to the right wing.
In the name of real democracy, we need an alternative to the right wing agenda running this country since Margaret Thatcher.
Because todate we have turned into a right wing police State. Our young people do not stand a chance against a political system upheld by the BBC Media.
Young of today, old of tomorrow. The youth of today needs to seriously think about the decisions they allow their government to adopt today. Because tomorrow it is likely to bite them in the rear. It is to often that the young don't have any comprehension that all the old people walking around today were the children of decades gone by, scarey thought.