Hearts of Innocence

I stumbled on this song today while finding lyrics for another song. Both songs are by one of my favorite Christian bands "Kutless".(If you click on the title below, you can listen to a music sample)

The lyrics may not have been written in regards to children in the struggling public school system, but the theme of how families are split apart, is one that often happens when children are pulled away from families by schools and peers. And the tragedy only worsens as the parents spend more time away from their kids working and living their own lives, and even living their lives separately from each other.

It's just a sad cycle that is repeated over and over every year. The concept makes no sense to me at all, unless we are discussing something akin to adults being sent to train for the military. But these are not adults...and these children are not training to be sent to the military.
They seemed to be training to go off into the work force to work for someone else....a little army of children trained in 'Work Force Academy".

This concept might have made sense when companies could be counted on in providing lifetime jobs with security and amazing benefits. But that's a real life fallacy now.
We need to 're-train' our children to consider trades where they may work for themselves and find a marketable skill that they have a passion for and that can sustain them during their lives.

We need to encourage lifetime learning in our children.....not just children that spend 12-18 years in educational institutions focusing on only one path. But children that are willing and able to grow up into still-learning adults that can shift and change if the 'job' markets change and to be flexible regarding the fickleness of human beings.
This will never be easy to do if we shut children up in the public school system for 12+ years, to learn exactly the same thing as every other child.

It's as if instead of growing unique, colorful and flowing wildflowers, we are growing endless fields of 'genetically modified' boring yellow corn.

Why can't we do better?


Hearts Of The Innocent
by Kutless
album: Hearts Of The Innocent (2006)

I'm looking down into the eyes of hopelessness
They're crying out to me
I see the pain
It's so much more than youth should know

It tears me apart
What can I do to change what I see
This vicious cycle
Must come to an end

Can't you see, we're crushing the hearts of the innocent
We're teaching them to fail
And how it breaks me to see how we're living
And punishing the ones that need us to care
To see them hurting
Feels like knuckles to the back of my head

Where have the days gone that a promise was forever
Families stuck together
We wonder why their generation struggles to get by
There's no one to help
What can I do to change what I see
This vicious cycle must come to an end

Can't you see, we're crushing the hearts of the innocent
We're teaching them to fail
And how it breaks me to see how we're living
And punishing the ones that need us to care
To see them hurting
Feels like knuckles to the back of my head

Can't you see, we're crushing the hearts of the innocent
We're teaching them to fail
And how it breaks me to see how we're living
And punishing the ones that need us to care
To see them hurting
Feels like knuckles to the back of my head
Feels like knuckles to the back of my head