Conley 1

Luke C. Conley

Mr. Tlumack

Honors 10 English 4Y

9/22/2017

A Crash Course in Open-Mindedness

Being raised by parents introduces the mentality that all adults are intelligent into every

single child. The idea makes logical sense, however, as elders have experienced more throughout

their lives, but that does not give them a degree in everything. When encountering a problem,

younger humans tend to adapt and solve with more creative means than their older counterparts,

which some adults view as incorrect since they too have also grown used to the idea that they are

automatically superior, and challenge any foreign ideas. Instead of challenging, older generations

should learn to encourage the younger generation’s different approach because it could lead to

new innovation, it is technically segregation not, and it improves relationships between adults

and children.

One of the most common ways of dealing with a problematic scenario is to take a break

and to change your perspective in the hopes that a new angle will shed light on an answer. So

why does that new angle become a problem if a younger person’s mind is the new angle?

Children and teens provide a fresh new outlook, and allow for more creative ideas since they do

not have previous experience to serve as bias. They are not fully held back by what society

declares as normal, which is why children usually laugh at and say zany, crazy phrases. Adults,

however, have been forced into the tunnel of social acceptance, and do not think outside the box

as well as children.
 Conley 2

The world has mostly removed gender and racial segregation from the Earth, but what

about age segregation? Choosing one person’s ideas over another’s purely for the preference of

their age could be compared to choosing one over the other because of race of gender. However,

preferring certain ages is, sadly, more acceptable in society. Adults tend to hug the idea that they

are always superior close to themselves, and promote other adults’ ideas because of their source

purely to make it seem that, the older the thought the better it is.

If age discrimination was removed, relationships between generations would improve.

Teens would think higher of their peers and of themselves, which would promote more ideas

between adults and children. Self-esteem would improve, and, as the two groups agree more,

both traditional and creative viewpoints would come together to forge an even greater solution.

The plague of age bias would deteriorate, and with less age-based issues and negativity sparking

problems the wall that separates the two generations and their ways of thinking would crumble.

Of course, adults have some reason to their statement, which is that they do have more

experience in a lot more subjects. Nevertheless, abusing age to cause one idea to be accepted

over another is exactly what the older generation must learn not to do. Age discrimination

should end as soon as possible, and if it did new possibilities for new ideas would emerge and

the two generations would begin to live in more synergy than before.