I'm really curious to see everyone's views on this. On one hand, learning all of the history, culture, world politics, economics, etc. is very important. I think they are subjects vital to everyone's education, but not every school has the budget to have all of these subjects on tap. On the other hand, why should there be people who aren't necessarily qualified to teach us things so important, and will their biases get in the way of the bigger message?
What is your opinion Hubski?
I don't know don't you think it's a bit silly?
"If we only did this one thing everything would be better!"
I don't think adults give teenagers enough credit. Teenagers want to be responsible but are never trusted, they want to be part of something but they are always excluded as children.
I can't take the idea that a "civic confirmation" class will help make irresponsible teenagers into responsible adults (whatever responsible means in the first place). Nor will it help them feel a cultural understanding (go to Texas to California to Oregon to Ohio to New York etc which one it the "American Culture")
If you want teenagers to learn about cultural tradition then guess what, you have to engage them for more than 1 week when they turn 15. I've never been to Iceland but I doubt very much that these kids are excited about this event any more than any other week that they get to spend with their friends.
This person just seems to really like tradition, and that's okay for them but I don't think tradition solves anyone's problems. It also seems like they are looking at the past through rose colored glasses. Todays generations are hardly fractured, in fact I would dare to say that many are closer and more integrated than ever.
The whole thing sounds creepy to me too. It could be good but like so many things it has the power to cause tremendous damage too... much like religion.
mike, have you any experience with this in Norway?
- The program in Iceland, like similar ones in Norway, Denmark, and Germany, is called a “civil confirmation.” It grows out of the 19th-century humanist and “ethical culture” movements that self-consciously resisted organized religion and particularly state-established religion. The programs are meant to replace a church confirmation. In Norway, nearly 15 percent of young people now choose to do it.
Kind of sounds like replacing instead of overthrowing, doesn't it? One's "civic confirmation" should be merely graduating from high school. But, sadly, that doesn't really guarantee that one has learned much of anything. The democratization of learning has some real drawbacks.
I think it's a kind of fascist youth group thing. Get them when they're young. Get them to wear uniforms, salute a flag and have contempt for anything foreign. Learning about the world and about culture is what you should do at school anyway. Making a semi religious/political bootcamp of it is very scary indeed.
The author is oddly privileged, however everyone else has already addressed that. My concern is that he never noticed the existing rite of passage in the United States and Canada: getting your driver's license.
In a few months, a child becomes a card-carrying marauder. The youth also gets to leave the sidewalk-free suburbs for the first time alone, nearly a decade later than one's grandparents would've hopped a trolley somewhere.
Sure, it's not a sexy ritual. It doesn't lend itself to a National Geographic special. No one loses a foreskin. However it's this huge cultural moment: an American child wants a job to pay for the freedom-inducing vehicle. The cycle begins again.