4. World Security and the Future from the Junior High School Perspective (1981)

We have before us a panel of experts on the view of world security from the seventh grade, two young men and two young women. They are experts because they are the only ones here who have the expertise of knowing what it is like to experience today’s world as twelve-year old persons. They are the only ones who know their memories of the past decade, the only ones who know their hopes and fears for the future. In this International Year of the Child there have been many programs about children and youth, and few programs involving them as active collaborators. I have called the unrecorded activities of women the Underside of History. Today I would add the unrecorded activities of children to that Underside. They have burdensome responsibilities to carry out, and burdensome judgments to make, in home, school and neighborhood that go unnoticed. To the extent that we dismiss what they do as “child’s play” we are the losers. They are in fact our collaborators, and we must learn to think of them in that way. The future depends on how well we listen to them, learn from them, dialogue with them, and engage in cooperative activities with them.