Spring 2004 Edition

Common Goals of Different Generations by Matt Greenfield (Fair Lawn High School student)   Too often is it said in Fair Lawn that the older residents are pitted against the youth, and the youth against the mature. Many believe that the interests of the elderly contradict those of the young. When litter is found near the high school, blanket accusations against all of Fair Lawn’s students are made, and when a lone neighbor takes undue offense to the mistakes of a student, there are youths who suggest that all older community members are predisposed to overreact.   While a few members of each generation campaign against each other on School Board funding questions and issues of student liberties, friction between the generations of Fair Lawn citizens leads us all to forget what we have in common.   Last month, while I was attending a conference of the nation’s young leaders I witnessed an extraordinary and moving scene in the lobby of Washington, DC’s Mayflower Hotel. Two or three high school students, bored though waiting patiently for an evening’s dinner to begin, sat on a couch near the main entrance and started to sing “Amazing Grace.” It so happened that there was concurrently a conference of the Paralyzed Veterans of America at the same hotel. Just as the first verse was drawing to a close, three wheelchairs neared the lounge, drawing closer to the melody.   As the second verse began, new voices entered the air. “T’was Grace that taught my heart to fear,” chimed some of the same voices that yelled over a beach in Normandy six decades ago and the some of the voices that broadcast over the radio waves at Da Nang 39 years ago.   Several of the veterans’ spouses were hesitant to enter the song, but by the time of the words “Through many dangers, toils, and snares we have already come,” they, too, had joined into the song.  “T’was Grace that brought us safe thus far, and Grace will lead us home” were the words that ended our chorus (as the dining room doors opened upon that line), but by the time those were sung, one dozen high school students and one dozen aging veterans were singing as one. Nobody in the area could possibly have noticed whether or not the group was singing on-key; after all, the remarkable part of the scene was that a roomful of strangers were singing together in a song about unity and salvation.   They refused to let the differences of generations come in between them, and so must we all. Fair Lawn has in its ranks too many youth who see the elderly as disconnected from society, and too many aged who see the youth as wayward and unmotivated. Each generation views the other as irrelevant to the present: too many young people believe the old to be past their prime and too many of Fair Lawn’s older citizens condemn the young to being influential only in the distant future. Neither can be farther from the truth.   Secretary of Education Rod Paige is fond of saying that “Kids are not only the future. They are the right here and right now.” The time has come that each of us agrees with Paige in admitting that we share the present with all of the other generations of our community. When the mature believe that the youth are indeed the here-and-now, and when the students concede that they are not alone in their relevance to the present, then Fair Lawn can find solidarity in its pursuits. Within and without the borders of Fair Lawn, the common goals of the uncommon generations can be met only by common respect among them all.   See Matt Greenfield's Previous Columns Improving the High School's Ranking  (Winter 2004) Spending Money Wisely  (Fall 2003) Student Governance (Summer 2003) School Budget (April 2003)  (April 2003) Seven Wonders in the Schools (February 2003) Smoking:  Story of Reconciliation  (December 2002) Support The Referendum (October 2002)