Freedom + A Good Education = Happiness

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My Response to an excerpt to the BBC News Article: Why are Dutch children so happy?
By Kathryn Westcott

BBC News website

 

The Dutch are famous for their liberal attitudes towards drinks, drugs and sex.

“Because parents are more relaxed, the dynamics of the problems are less severe than in countries where they are seen as more of a serious issue,” says Mr Vangeert.

Laura Vos, a 16-year-old schoolgirl from Amsterdam agrees.

“In this country, it’s very free, you can do anything you want,” she told the BBC’s Newsnight programme. “You can smoke at 16, you can buy pot in the store next to the school. You can do what you like and because it’s not illegal, it’s not that interesting for us to provoke our parents with it.”

Schoolfriend Michell Klimt told the BBC that she thought that teenagers in other countries had to deal with the type of peer pressure that her friends did not have to even consider.

“I think in England, for example, there is a lot of pressure on teenagers. There is something on MTV called Virgin Diaries. Girls of 16 and 17 worry because they are still virgins. It’s like they have to have sex to be cool,” she says.

“In Holland, it isn’t that important - it doesn’t matter to anyone.”

 

*gasp* This cannot bode well! These cannot possibly be moral nor happy people! Young kid’s doing drugs is the downfall of a country and leads to addiction and increased crime rates… right?

I think this is a perfect example of peer pressure on teenagers, or perhaps more appropriately, the lack of. In the same way that hate creates hate, keeping something from someone only makes them want it more. I can justifiably say that the prohibition era mobs, the gangs on the streets today, and the increased underage pregnancy rates are all to blame on the screwed up system of what is considered “moral” in this country.

The article also states that even though these seemingly “unquestionably sinful” things are legal, that the schooling of these kids teaches them enough common sense to know how to handle them selves. Shrooms were recently banned in the Netherlands, not because of the actions of any native who was on them… but rather because of foreigners who had irresponsibly used them.

Has our educational system drifted so far into the spectrum of “let’s teach our kids enough that they can do well on standardized national exams to make our school look good?” that we no longer teach the basics of common sense to our children? We are taught not to learn from experiences but instead to religiously believe everything we are told in school or by the media. I’m sorry but when’s the last time you heard about someone dieing of alcohol poisoning their first time drinking, or over dosing the first time they try something? Any historian who says we learn from history will agree with me that we learn from experiences. I am happier today because I know what to, and especially what not to do, in certain situations and around certain people. I have learned very little of this from what others have told me.

Kind of a rant, but it just seems to me that the things and way we are taught is one that promotes not only apathy and the blind following of authority, but also what seems like a domesticated to feral turn around in our lifestyles at the first taste of something forbidden.

I am happy not because I am free, but because I know what to do with me freedom.

 

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Tags: Education, Europe, Freedom