The year I turned 11 marked huge events in history: oil reached $24 a barrel, Margaret Thatcher was elected Prime Minister of Britain, and China instituted the one-child policy. But I knew nothing of all that. I spent 1979 nagging my parents for the new Sony Walkman, watching Mork & Mindy and wishing Wayne from 6B might look up from his rugby ball and notice me.

Connected to the world in more ways than one

Fast-forward 30 or so years and I’m in a school hall listening to 11 year-olds speak about multiculturalism. In a week where the leaders of our country have neither the grace nor the wherewithal to deliver on asylum seeker policy, these kids blow me away. Not just with their ideals but their insights.

One boy who was eight when he moved from Singapore to Australia speaks eloquently about “the power of people like me”. A girl (OK, she’s mine) quotes Anh Do when imploring her audience to embrace all cultures: “There are only two times. Now and too late.”

They’re only 11 little people lingering between innocence and maturity, but these kids give me hope. I want to bottle and distil their convictions and passion, and deliver cupfuls of their clarity tagged with “Drink Me” to the likes of Abbott, Gillard and the Greens.

If you thought childhood was going to hell in a handbasket, being sabotaged by technology and sexualised imagery, then you need to quit listening to the adults and start listening to the kids. Because while “11” for me was all shameless self-interest and Blondie songs, today’s kids care deeply, and can argue fiercely, about their world.

I Am Eleven is the sweetest film I’ve seen this year. Australian director Genevieve Bailey’s documentary features 11 year-olds from around the globe walking the isthmus between their private concerns and a world that’s ambushed them with images since two tall towers were obliterated in the first year of their lives. I’m unsure if this generation of internet-connected, globally-cognisant children will be harmed or enriched by their knowledge. Only that they know no other.

Bailey introduces a melting pot of kids: Indian girls living in an orphanage; Muslim rapper boys living in Sweden; an inner-city Aboriginal girl who lives with her dad; a bullied British boy; a Czech girl who dreams of becoming a secret agent.

Some still have the delightful self-absorption of youth; others seem burdened with more than their skinny shoulders can bear. At first it seems their only commonality is their age, but you later realise something else unites them: 11 year-olds are blessedly free from cynicism.

French boy Remi thinks racism is “absurd” and is disenchanted with his nation’s politics. But he’s hopeful: “I’ve always dreamt there would be no borders – that the world would just be one country. That way, there will be no more inequalities.”

Environmental degradation, terrorism, bullying and war concern them. They regard religion as unnecessarily divisive. And love, for some, has already brought problems. “Last year,” says Dagan from the US, “I had a girlfriend who was very annoying. She talked very fast and all I could do was smile and go, ‘Ha, ha’. But this new girl, she talks mellow, so that’s good.”

Bailey says she made the film because age 11 was the happiest time of her life. In many respects, it was also mine. I didn’t get a Walkman, but Wayne did notice me and I also met the girl who would be my friend for life.

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42 comments

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    • CarbonDog says:

      06:48am | 22/07/12

      Angela, kids are ridiculously good at telling adults what they want to hear, and clearly what you want to hear is a lot of green-tinged social justice babble—which, incidentally, is what the schools want to hear. You’d love my ten year old, who goes to school and spouts all the required lines about climate change and “social justice” (even got a tick for it in his last report!) but comes home and has a laugh with me about it because he knows he just has to play the game.

    • CD says:

      09:29am | 22/07/12

      And sellers of their own goods are so adept at ensuring they find the kids who’ll say just what they need and ignore the others.

      I’ve been in this world too long to be fooled with this stuff. Maybe Angela hasn’t.

    • Leah says:

      05:48pm | 22/07/12

      What CarbonDog said. By 11 kids know what to say in school assignments and school speeches to get good marks. They write the words because that’s what’s required of the assignment, not because that is what they genuinely believe or care about.  As someone who has spent the last 7 years giving up my friday nights as a volunteer at a primary school kids’ program, I love kids and know they are very clever. They are also worried about the world around them and have big hearts. Terrorism and innocent kids being caught up in war bothers them. But they’re just as selfish as we were when we were 11 and, unless prompted, spend far more time talking about the boys in their class and the teacher who was SO unfair, than asylum seekers or environmental degradation.

    • Phil S says:

      12:42pm | 23/07/12

      @CarbonDog

      Your post made me laugh.

      “kids are ridiculously good at telling adults what they want to hear”
      “has a laugh with me about it because he knows he just has to play the game”

      One wonders if he isn’t taking you for a ride instead of his teachers…

    • Babylon in Canberra says:

      07:45am | 22/07/12

      Interesting Angela that you see a link between multiculturalism and Asylum Seeker policy. For me one is the way a society can structured and the other is border control and national security.

      We live in an age of terrorism that threatens multiculturalism. Efficient border control is one of the tools for combating terrorism and crime.

      Due to the inefficiency of our laws and related Border controls, we know children as young as 11 are brought into Australia for nefarious purposes. Not only that but we can see for ourselves the problems in Europe since its members brought down their border controls.

      As for accepting other cultures, well to do that properly mainstream Australian socialist thought is going to have to curb its criticism of religion, because other cultures are defined and ordered by their God.

      Perhaps Abbott also sees a link between multiculturalism and Asylum seekers and this is further justification of his rejection of Julia’s Malaysian Concentration Camp solution, which if this were the case, would deliver a devastating blow to the delicate fabric of multicultural Australia.

      Regarding your youth references, I bet you Are you one of those people that “tapes” programmes rather than “records” them?  smile

    • Mickey T says:

      02:21pm | 22/07/12

      “we know children as young as 11 are brought into Australia for nefarious purposes”

      Do we? According to who? Did Alan Jones tell you this or is this the latest propaganda scare campaign to come out of Liberal party headquarters??

      Babble on, your handle suits your comments.

    • Mik says:

      08:16am | 22/07/12

      As any primary teacher will tell you, there’s a lot of wisdom in those little souls but there are too many who are just dismissed by their adult relations. They also have a deep understanding of their carers’ vanities, weaknesses and strengths, and for some, its a matter of survival.

    • Mouse says:

      11:32am | 22/07/12

      @Mik   Wisdom comes from experience not programming, These little souls may say how they feel about multiculturalism, how we should all live together in peace and harmony, and, while the objective is pure, it is not the reality.  Living here, they do not understand it because they do not live it and are generally sheltered from the worst by their adult relations. Children are not stupid and learn from a young age how to act to get the responses they want and that is survival.

      You say that the children’s wisdom is dismissed by their adult relations but this is not the case. Dreams are good and something to work towards but living today is not a dream and the reality is not always good. Maybe if these dreams are kept as the children grow up and live within the confines of the real world, then, and only then, can anything be changed. That is called progression and that is how man survives.

    • Mayday says:

      08:39am | 22/07/12

      Fluff and an easy buck.

      Don’t you just love it when “adults” use children to set up some utopian vision of how the world should/could or would be without the various vagaries of human nature?

      Don’t you just love it when they then cash in on it with a book or movie?

      No, thank you.

    • Carz says:

      08:42am | 22/07/12

      While I am happy for my 11 year old ( and her 13 year old brother) to know about what’s happening in the world and to be developing a social conscience it has come at a cost. Many of these kids are no longer being taught about their own country’s history beyond ” The Invasion” and where white and Aboriginal history intersect. My kids know very little about the men who explored Australia, the gold rush, or their convict ancestors.

    • Bertrand says:

      11:01am | 22/07/12

      Your kids obviously go to a school that doesn’t follow the national history curriculum. You should raise this with the school principal and the head of the history department.

      You should also ask yourself what you have failed to teach your kids if they have no knowledge of their country’s past.

    • kate says:

      08:56am | 22/07/12

      Where to begin?? Lefties love to put children on a pedestal-  those innocent minds, just ripe for the picking. Surely they would believe in man made global warming (after we tell them all about them Polar Bears)?
      Thanks for that cute bit about the French boy Remi. It seems that the Green’s policies have been written by an 11 year old. These 11 year olds have a wealth of knowledge and experience, they would surely understand that a borderless society has already been tried by the European Union, and worked as far as the communist ideal of bringing everybody down.
      Perhaps you should have gotten a quote from Oakshott’s kids, I heard that they helped with their dad’s decision about who should be the leader of Australia.
      PS. please stop mentioning Abbott when you talk about ‘the leaders of our country’ failing. There are only two leaders of our country at present- Milne and Gillard. Somebody should have told them that with power comes responsibility. Maybe you should get Remi to give them a call.
      Abbott isn’t PM yet, you can tell because the country is run by a bunch of 11year olds who are ‘free from cynicism’. Abbott is just a nasty cynic who believes in things like proper immigration queues (we won’t tell those 11 year olds about all the people dying in UN camps while those with $10 000 to spare jump ahead of the queue, will we?) and accountability for money thieving crooks.
      Sorry for the rant but I have had enough of left wing propaganda.

    • Shane From Melbourne says:

      01:08pm | 22/07/12

      Yep, definitely agree with you that Tony Abbott is no leader, despite his title Leader of the Opposition. Even when he becomes PM, he will be the usual fool like Howard, Rudd and Gillard. Australia hasn’t had a real leader since Paul Keating. The PM that dismantled tariffs (which I disagree with), floated the dollar, introduced compulsory superannuation etc etc.

    • TracyH says:

      02:00pm | 22/07/12

      I agree, Kate. Also, the concept of a world without borders won’t make any difference or curb discrimination, because humans will always belong to tribes based on religion, or other ideology. Having said that, it’d be nice to think like a kid again…because they are, fortunately for them, still kids and blissfully ignorant. But, yeah…for any adult to still think this way indicates arrested development.

    • Babylon in Canberra says:

      02:33pm | 22/07/12

      Ah Keating, the PM that talked us into recession.

    • Rose says:

      02:36pm | 22/07/12

      Maybe you should stop worrying about left and right wing and should start arming yourself with a little bit of actual knowledge.
      For a start. how is denying people a few thousand people arriving on boats the efficient and humane processing of their asylum claims, going to have any real impact on the millions of other asylum seekers and refugees languishing around the world? The only thing we need do is come up with a way of dealing with asylum seekers who are headed our way in a manner which eliminates the need for them to attempt a risky boat journey and which allows efficient and effective processing of claims.
      As for Tony Abbott, whether you like it or not, he is one of our country’s leaders. His actions have a direct impact on the way this country is governed, even more so now that we have a minority government. And, as much as the Gillard government has failed in a lot of ways, so has Abbott and the Coalition. We do not have, on either side of the political spectrum, anyone who currently looks capable of being a decent Prime Minister, and that is the fault of poor processes and insight in both parties, the disrespect they show in dealing with the Australian people and the gullibility and self focussed nature of Australian citizens.
      As for climate change, the overwhelming majority of evidence supports the theory, there is now only really debate around the edges and the best way of tackling it.
      If you want solutions to problems of people of different cultures getting along, maybe you should look at kids, overwhelmingly the just play with each other ignoring cultural difference and concentrating on things they enjoy that are the same. It only seems to be as they get older and have had exposure to adult interference when they start aligning themselves along cultural lines.
      Lastly, you do understand that right wing propaganda is just as destructive as left wing propaganda, they are two sides of the exact same coin.

    • Nikki says:

      03:24pm | 22/07/12

      So it wasn’t just me that thought Remi’s quote sounded like something Sarah Hanson-Young would say.

      It is as I suspected: Greens policy is developed by 11 year old children.

    • Andrew says:

      11:46pm | 22/07/12

      Rose, so you dont think it compacts on the few 1000’s in refugees camps who dont have $10000, and have to keep waiting for placement because quotas are fulled by illegals. I have the answer send anyone back that dont come through the right channels that will stop the boats, noone will risk there lifes if they are going to be sent back, prietty simple really. We cant take everyone, so why do people like you think we should take take the ones that can afford to pay 1000’s instead of the ones that are actually in even more desperate need because they dont have any money.

    • Andrew says:

      09:15am | 22/07/12

      What a load of crap, just what the world needs a heap of 11 year old smartarse kids with no life experience, who think they know how everything works. There 11 get out there and play and have fun leave the other stuff until later when they actually have the ability to judge for themselves not just parrott what there teacher or other people of influence tell them. As they get older they will understand that we dont live in fairyland were everything is perfect and black and white, and that things are slightly more complex then they think when they are 11 years old.

    • stephen says:

      09:29am | 22/07/12

      If 11 year olds say what adults want them to say, then they want to be liked and will be nice to achieve those ends.
      And being nice may be the first step to what Angie on Weekend Today, today, says about the children she talks to, (Angie, yer gotta get on an easier show, like IMT, or something easier to type).
      Wanting to be liked is a good impulse to good acts, but a difficulty might be that youth who are undereducated do not, as events unfold and obstacles are put in their way, have the skills to deliberate or rationalize their thoughts and feelings.
      They may have doubts about what they thought at 11, not to mention that when they do not develop specific skills at school, they find it hard to complete tasks.
      Anyone would have problems knowing what to do, how to achieve things and the right way to go about change if they have not an idea how things work.
      Schools have a duty to be specific and thorough in their instruction, and it is a fine thing for the young to want Justice and a proper Multiculturalism, but they would want to be able to fix things if they go wrong, to know how to form social contacts, (hang on, they already know that !) ... but my point is they need theory, and they need experience, and a good education can give them both.

    • Cat says:

      09:34am | 22/07/12

      Sadly most of these kids are just saying what they know should be saying. A very few may really want it to happen but the majority will be speaking the line they know they are expected to speak.
      Before anyone suggests I am being too cynical the same is true of adults. Very few adults say what they really believe. Most will say what they believe they should say. They will agree rather than have people think less well of them. They will agree rather than have to confront and debate with people.
      This is what allows the bullies to get away with it - an bullies are sometimes people that we are told we should look up to. They are “activists”, lobbyists, the media - the people who tell us what we should be thinking about climate change, human rights, asylum seekers, indigenous culture, religion/atheism, football, the arts or the colour that is this year’s “fashion”.
      Kids get pretty good at towing the party line, about agreeing and doing as the bullies want. It is easier that way. You don’t need to think too hard for yourself. It means you are part of the crowd, perhaps even the leader of an inside group and one of the bullies yourself.
      We don’t always think of these people as bullies of course - sometimes they are seen as “experts” who “know better” than we do even when we have that sneaking feeling they are not necessarily right.
      If we really want to change the world we are going to teach kids a very wide view of history, not just the politically correct nonsense that passes for it now. We are going to teach them a great deal more about literature, music and the other arts - not just popular culture and the politically correct nonsense that passes for it now.
      Getting a few kids to appear on film speaking political correctness is not going to change the world but it will encourage the bullies.

    • AndrewMcL says:

      12:02pm | 22/07/12

      This had to be one of the most thoughtful and realistic comments I have ever read on Punch. No doubt the bullies will disagree but, yes Cat is right you are bullies - just not recognised as such - in fact worse than many ordinary bullies because you believe “I am right and you are wrong” and cannot recognise other points of view which may be equally valid.  At least most school yard bullies know they are doing the wrong thing!

    • David T. says:

      12:42pm | 22/07/12

      AGREE! I know I have some “I am right and you are wrong” views - we all do but when they are given out by the media, activists AND teachers as “the truth” then we are really doing our kids a huge disservice. Getting children to spout this out on film only adds to the problem. Perhaps it was well meant but it is, at best, misguided and it can be downright dangerous.

    • Shane From Melbourne says:

      06:24pm | 22/07/12

      @Cat- damn all those bullies at CSIRO, Royal Society, IPCC, NOAA, NASA etc. They’re only “experts”, what do they know about climate change? Try teaching the kids science, logic and reasoning.

    • marley says:

      08:13pm | 22/07/12

      @Shane - if you’re going to teach 11-year olds science, you start with chemistry and physics, not climatology.  They need to have the basics first.  They don’t have the scientific background at age 11 to make reasoned judgements on climate change.  Hell, most of the adults around them don’t. 

      And it’s not that I’m disputing the science of climate change, because I’m not;  I’m saying that feeding that to an 11 year old who doesn’t have the scientific background to understand it, and you are teaching politics, not science.

    • Andrew says:

      11:54pm | 22/07/12

      Obviusly SFA shane, maybe you can enlighten us on what actual predictions they have got right so far.

    • rod sexton says:

      10:25am | 22/07/12

      Yes Angela, my kids used to home from school and quote their left-wing teachers ad nauseum; yet they grew into adults and grew a mind of their own. The shame is that some children never grow up.

    • Anjuli says:

      11:56am | 22/07/12

      It would be interesting to be around when an 11 year old who has stood up and given a speech of how the world should be, then have them speak when they are 50 years old then see how they think and what they have done with their lives.

    • vox says:

      12:30pm | 22/07/12

      Well, what a sad bunch of mean little people sitting in the mean little corner of their own square box. And they all appear to be non-lefties with all of the answers to all of mankind’s many problems.
      Do you even talk with your children? And if they only tell you what they know you want to hear, who’s the lazy parent? Blame the teacher, blame Gillard, blame Lenin, is there no end to your idleness?
      Opening borders was seen by a couple to have alreadt been tried. Bloody communism. Of course, only the most shallow of thinkers would say that. People fail, not programs, but that’s a bit complicated for some.
      Listen to the children and you may discover what has been there all of the time.
      Brainwashing children is a full-time job. We’re talking political ideology, religion, (any religion,but mainly the catholic Church), even which sport i
      is “good”, and which is “not good”.
      I work with kids, and boy, is it a blast! I learn heaps from them and they certainly make my life a better place.
      Cat and Stephen, just to pick two, are glaring examples of what is lacking in their own children’s upbringing. You both should be ensuring that they receive a proper education. Or is that too much trouble?
      Poor old Kate couldn’t resist bringing Abbott into the fray, but I think she missed the boat with that idiotic move. You see Kate, Abbott was taught to tell people what they want to hear. He peddled the “Do as I say” line “or you’ll go to hell in a handbasket!” for a living. Lies, all lies. Of course he was only eleven when the kiddy-fiddlers got hold of him, so it’s not his fault is it?
      Any parent who loves a child makes sure that the child is not brainwashed.
      I feel I’m wasting my time because you are all that of which you complain. You are all on automatic, and that is really sad. And, like Abbott you are yourselves bullies. Read your words.

    • TracyH says:

      03:00pm | 22/07/12

      vox…thanks for proving Carz’ point.

    • TracyH says:

      03:02pm | 22/07/12

      I meant Cat’s point. Though Carz has a good point too smile

    • Rose says:

      03:38pm | 22/07/12

      “Brainwashing children is a full-time job. We’re talking political ideology, religion, (any religion,but mainly the catholic Church), even which sport i
      is “good”, and which is “not good”.” Why mainly the Catholic Church? if you’re going to make defamatory comments such as that you should have the decency to back it up!

    • ChrisW says:

      04:00pm | 22/07/12

      The last person you should have picked out was Cat - go and read what was actually written there. It picked out a wide variety of examples and viewpoints. It was very even handed but it pointed out something you did not want to listen to didn’t it? It said that those who indulge in the “I am right and you are wrong” stance are bullies - that’s brainwashing? I don’t think so.
      Yes, I know the left never, never ever indulges in those sort of tactics - perhaps. They accept that everyone has a right to their point of view - perhaps. After all they are always right and everybody else is always wrong. That is what is wrong with the sort of exercise in that film - it’s acceptable only so long as you support the left and nothing but the left.
      Believe it or else? That’s the way extremists - on both sides - behave.
      @Vox you do tell your children that climate change is open to debate don’t you? But then you tell them that climate change deniers are wrong too don’t you? And that’s not brainwashing is it because you know you are right and everyone who disagrees with you is wrong.
      Love to have your certainty and feel sorry for your children.

    • Gregg says:

      06:15pm | 22/07/12

      I’m not too sure who is attempting the brainwashing Vox and even manuals can get stuck in one gear when the clutch fails or the box just goes clunk.

      Sure it is good to listen to kids just as it is to listen to anyone in a conversation or if someone is delivering on their views and your own views may either conincide or be somewhat different, it being great if listening is a two way approach with learning on both sides.

      Adults do not have all the right answers on many subjects where they are not so black and white and nor should we expect children to be totally correct either and listening to someone should also be accompanied by feedback just as like on The Punch even if views of many may be somewhat entrenched.

      Whilst you feel people and not programs fail, my view would be that not every program ought to always be considered tops and bad programs can give the appearance of people failing, Peter Garrett and Pink Batts one prime example.

    • Nikki says:

      03:37pm | 22/07/12

      It’s easy to be idealistic at age 11, when you have no responsibility and don’t know anything about anything apart from what your dippy primary school teacher has told you.

      However, it takes real dedication to maintain that level of ignorance and naivety through to adulthood and become a Green voter.

    • Mickey T says:

      04:08pm | 22/07/12

      Lucky for you Nikki, look what you’ve got to look forward to…your 12th birthday!

    • Nikki says:

      01:25pm | 23/07/12

      Yay! My mum said I can have a slumber party, we will do makeovers and crimp each others hair and make up dance routines to Debbie Gibson songs and stay up until midnight watching The Lost Boys. And the next day mum will take us ice skating. But you’re not invited because you’ve got boys germs.

    • Tad says:

      06:22pm | 22/07/12

      The comments about kids (and teenagers too) telling adults what they think they want to hear is true.

      It easier to just be a zombie and do what’s expected of you. Once they become adults some, maybe most, will act and think differently.

    • PhilD says:

      08:26pm | 22/07/12

      In Central Africa they give 11 year olds AK47s. They don’t care too much about borders and they’ll blow you away too. The evil trinity of religion, politics and economics takes a harsher form there in that melting pot of multiculturism.

    • Max Horkheimer says:

      11:40am | 23/07/12

      So it is clear, the revolution is working comrades and my foot-soldiers the teachers are doing their jobs:

      “The Revolution won’t happen with guns, rather it will happen incrementally, year by year, generation by generation. We will gradually infiltrate their educational institutions and their political offices, transforming them slowly into Marxist entities as we move towards universal egalitarianism.”

    • ALAN says:

      12:08pm | 23/07/12

      so this kid can maybe or wants to change the world ,.i hope he,s not like OBAMA that promoted that he will,and has done nothing to change it,only he has stagnated it with ,false promises and lies.if this kid can do it. great good on him,but dont tell lies in the mean time like a one time president of the U.S..

    • chuck says:

      12:16pm | 23/07/12

      Let’s hope they learn something about contraception, responsibility, accountability, independence and sustainable populations.

 

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