Each generation looks to the younger generation to fix their mistakes. The next few generations will have to deal with a plethora of issues the current generations face such as climate change, poverty, lack of resources, and nuclear war. While these are all very frightening issues that threaten everything that humanity as a whole has created, we can only hope that our generation and the ones that follow us can combat them. These days it seems like the news is fairly bleak, so I went down to the elementary school to see what Generation Z has in store for us.

When I walked into Lisa McGuire’s kindergarten class, I was greeted by five and six year olds, eager to find out who I was and what I was doing in their classroom. After meditation, I asked them about their predictions for the next year, to which most of them responded that their birthdays or other personal events were coming up. When I asked them who they believed the President of the United States should be, most of them responded with either Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., or God, with Nolan standing up and assuring everyone that his brother had informed him that Donald Trump wears a wig. I then asked them about some more important issues.

Arguably the most pressing issue that will arise during our lifetime is climate change, and these kindergarteners are already working to help the Earth more than the older generations have in decades. Many of the students help clean their houses or give away clothes they’ve outgrown and others, like Nolan, Hailey, and Ryleigh, have other methods of helping the earth.        

“I pick up other people’s trash cause I’m just weird,” Nolan said.

“I turn off the water when I’m brushing my teeth,” Hailey said.

“I recycle some of my Barbies,”  Ryleigh said.

Another controversial topic right now is immigration, but every kindergartener I asked believed that everyone should be allowed to live and work in the United States, and some, like Jake, even encouraged people to move here.

“I hope everybody lives here because there are no hurricanes or tornadoes,” Jake said.  

“I think everyone should be treated well,” Hailey said.

“[I think everyone should be able to live and work here] because they wanna live but not die,” Kalena said.

After learning about the pay gap between men and women, the five-year-olds all thought it was unfair and many like Jett and Jake didn’t understand why girls and boys wouldn’t be treated the same.

“[They should be able to have the same jobs] so they can work together,” Jake said.

“[They should be able to have the same jobs] cause they can get the same amount of money,” Jett said.

After a while, they all got bored of answering my questions that didn’t revolve around them, but perked up the minute I asked them what they wanted to be when they grew up. What originally started with everyone giving one or two career options ended with each student having a very long list that looked very similar to their classmates. As a result, it seems the future will have a lot of police officers, teachers, and dancers in it, but other students like Nolan and Estella gravitated towards more abstract professions.

“[I want to be a] painter and a gym teacher,” Nolan said. “I also wanna be a wizard. I would want someone to tell me two wishes. Yeah [like a genie]. I wanna be a skiing teacher. I forgot another one; I wanna be a giant.”

“I wanna be lots of fancy stuff like a fashionista, diva, and a dresser. I also want to be a singer, dancer and a police officer,” Estella said.

Although we will be facing a lot of difficult issues in the future as a country and world, the next generations seems more than ready to tackle these problems.