So many of the admonitions and corrections we offer to young people have to do with their futures. "You have to learn how to ..." , "One day you are going to have to ..." or "If you don’t get good grades this year ..." Our message seems to be that childhood and youth are no more than periods of preparation for adulthood. Adulthood, in this view, is seen as the ambition and fulfilment of kids’ lives.

Yes, it is true that we learn from one stage of development things which will be useful in succeeding stages. In fact we know that later stages are often tougher when we have not gained minimal learning and skills during the "work" of earlier stages. But there is no universal checklist on which we have to get 100% perfect grades before we can be admitted to the next stage. "Sorry, you cannot be enrolled in Late Adolescence 101 because you have done a lousy job of your previous grades!"

Some of the fiercest debates in education during the 20^th century were about learning and examinations. "Am I learning this material because it is intrinsically useful or am I learning it to satisfy an examiner?" More to the point: "In my schooldays am I only learning things about life for later use, or am I already living life?"

Emphasising the dichotomy between childhood and adulthood contributes to the alienation of young people, to the barriers so often thrown up between us, to the feelings of hostility and exclusion so often experienced. In the modern age, because we seem to be doing such different things, we lose the continuity of human generations. There are mountains where there were earlier only passes, chasms where there were bridges.

But what has this to do with our practice today?

If we expect youngsters in our programs to be doing no more than jumping through the hoops of our curriculum to satisfy some future yardstick of society, then today will be grim and joyless indeed. These kids, especially these kids, cannot be motivated over such time-scales. But if we alter our perspective to acknowledge that today they are living life, not just preparing for life, maybe they can go to bed tonight with some small successes and encouragements, small gains in beliefs and skills, small experiences of acceptance and belonging.

They may not yet have learned sophisticated social, educational and employment qualities — but they will have learned something far more valuable for their futures: that there is hope and that life is worth living.