we've all been told we should respect our elders, but what about respecting our young people?

This Weeks Ecotrain question of the week is 'does respecting your elders still hold true today?' I had to answer this weeks question as this is something I have struggled with my whole life.

Growing up in East London and being educated to the age of 14 in an environment where the kids ruled the classroom and there was little respect for Teachers you can probably see why my first impressions of life was to respect no one especially not 'elders'. Elders where authority figures, who were boring, limiting and had no clue what our reality was really like.

source: pixabay

The fact that we were the unteachables and everyday was an anarchic uprising, lets just say everyone one had ADHD and this was before it was a thing to be diagnosed, this crazy and chaotic environment actually prevented me from being brainwashed by a whole load of normal behaviours and beliefs, that aren't healthy. It's not healthy sitting hours a day at a desk, copying information passively that makes no sense, until its drilled into you by going over and over the same meaningless crap. Children need to be independent learners and they need variety, action and movement. Even after working as a teaching assistant myself for only 6 months I became deflated and drained, I left the mainstream educational system because of its corruption and backward linear approach to learning.

source: pixabay

I always wanted to give teaching a try because I love to help, I love to learn and explain things especially to young people. This desire probably came from the lasting impact one Teacher (elder) made on me and many other students, who really did shine a light in the darkest of school environments, who could grab and hold the attention of the class, be active, dynamic, creative and meet us at our level. He had a lasting affect and sometime after leaving that school I found out he became a award wining teacher and went on to write a serious of books, and workshops to help teachers and parents. The amazing thing was he did not fit into our world view of what was cool, he actually looked very bizarre to us, with long hair to the shoulders and wearing purple doctor martins boots, he made us laugh not just at him but with him, if we gave him abuse he knew how to handle it, he actually would use swear words and teased us back. We respected him for that, he definitely respected us, we knew that because he put all his energy and effort into making teaching fun. When I have seen how restrictive teaching can be, it is incredible what he managed to achieve with us and so many students after us, he was exceptional and defied a lot of the criticism about his teaching style from his peers.

Source: left right Article here

Where I live now in Spain, respecting your elders is just a cultural normality, theres no question about it and old grannies get the right of way. If you queuing, waiting to pay in a shop and a granny will push right in front of you, she wont say anything, its her right! If I was in London i'd get darn right annoyed, a line is a line but here I just keep my cool, Tranquilo, there's no real rush anyway but what the hell? Aren't grannies the ones with the most time on their hands? And after all they are the ones who normally take ages asking the shop keeper questions, general chit chat, even getting all those pennies out the purse to pay for the darn things take 5 minutes. Don't get me wrong I do sorta have a respect for very older people, just for the fact they are older and technically more fragile, they've seen things through the vast expanse of time, so many changes and they come from a world of time gone by, where life was physically more demanding. But not all old people are nice, many are bitter and harbor all sorts of negative thought patterns. Lets say I have a lot more respect for the 90 year old Indian yogi, with no physical life possessions and who can put his legs behind his head.

Source: LeftRight

But what about respect for the youth, these are some of the most vulnerable people on the planet and some of the most intelligent. Children are highly perceptive, they are able to see and articulate things that adults often over look, children are the future and have the ability to make great ripples in the universe. I have a lot of respect for young people, like my former teacher, who wanted to bring out the inner genius in EVERY child. Without respecting and believing in their unique individuality, we just continue to try and model copies of own fallen, brainwashed corrupted behavioral and thinking patterns on to them. But there are children who go against the grain of what their parents, teachers and elders try to push on them. Some of the children have made history by fighting for equal rights and making ground breaking inventions. I honestly believe if we gave children the respect they deserve, we would live in a better world, instead people still worry to much about how the elders will feel and think about that, a lot of these elders are the ones who wont allow change for the better, because it doesn't fit in with their paradigm about how the world should be.

Young people who helped change the world, image and article source:

When it comes down to it, in principle i'm all about having a general respect for everyone, because they are apart of the creative life force and a unique being, but I don't live up to this high ideal and there have been many people I've disrespected. Of course there are people out there not deserving of respect, because of the way they have abused their power but everyone has the ability to be something different, everyone essentially has the same essence of God inside them, for me this extends to animals and plants. Actually I have much more respect for plants than human beings let alone my elders!

source: pixabay

But ultimately our idea of what respect is might have to be revalued? Is respect really letting someone older than you jump the queue, to open the door for someone, does it really mean anything? or is it about genuine connection with another, the ability to find a level ground, where learning and dialogue can happen. Respect for respect sake is an outdated concept in my eyes and there needs to be some exchange, its no secret that young and old both can learn a lot from each other and this is where we can learn from our plant counter parts. For example the douglas fir tree can live up to a thousand years, this tree is part of a vast network of the forest, it has a relationship with other life that live in and around it, even sharing nutrients with mushrooms and giving its carbon to the youngest most vulnerable trees of its kind through its expansive root system. This is true ancient wisdom I respect, living symbiotically with the world around you and pouring your resources into the next generations so they can thrive.

source: pixabay

🥑 🍎🥝 🍉 🍇 🍐🍓🍈🍋🍑 🍍🍊🍌🍏

For more health, nutrition, spirituality, general rants check out @celestialcow....

switching to a plant based diet 🌱 can change your life and change the world
✌️Join the food revolution now✊

All images are created by @celestialcow

Thanks for reading