If you were in elementary school in the 90's, you might remember an old monthly publication called Time Kids. It was exactly what it sounds like, a short, infotainment dealie for little kids. A little world events, a few animal facts, a crossword puzzle.
And there at the end, there was always an article on some school which eliminated homework and tripled recess and watched their test scores improve, or brought in chefs to work the cafeteria and actually gave kids time to eat, and BMI percentages dropped, kids ate more vegetables, nourished children did better in class, etc.
And you always thought, "Well if it works so well there, why not do that in every school?".
And then you went back to simultaneously trying to pay attention in class while keeping a lookout for the black widow spiders which made their home in the "temporary" trailer classroom, now older than several graduating classes.
And that's what being a millenial in the US feels like. Watching other places rock universal healthcare, universal living wage, bodily autonomy for all, drug laws which treat addiction as medical rather than criminal - and being told they can't be done, watch for spiders.
And just like living through the height of No Child Left Behind, we get to get up each morning and read an article about how our standardized test scores are what's keeping us down.
