David Suzuki Hidden Lessons Summary

Mankind has existed for thousands of years and we have evolved to become better than past generations… or did we? We learned to evolve technologically to fight against each another. We learned to evolve intellectually to vote Donald Trump as the US president of 2016. We learn all these things that cause our own destruction, yet we don’t learn to care for the environment around us and respect it. In “Hidden Lessons” by David Suzuki, he explains how children are misguided by the negative views of nature of many people and how children are influenced to fear nature rather than embrace it. While I am not an environmental activist, I strongly agree with David Suzuki’s inner meaning of not just teaching “children to love and respect other life forms”

As I read the essay, I started to realize that while David Suzuki based this essay on nature and the wildlife, the deeper meaning within is not actually just about nature; instead, it is about parents influencing kids to think a certain way rather than letting them experience it firsthand and unbiased, and I believe that as society is changing, more people are focusing on fitting into the norm rather than trying things out on their own and having their own opinions. I feel upset that society is changing in the wrong way, and sometimes I wonder if parents are taking away their children’s curiosity of the world around them and manipulating their views on aspects of

In the essay, David Suzuki explains how her daughter’s friends were afraid when she “brings home new friends” (128), which are salamanders. While I believe salamanders are really cool, I actually never got to see one (which upsets me), but instead, I used to play with caterpillars. As a young student back in North Agincourt, I loved to go to the leaves during springtime and get a caterpillar on my hand. I used to love the cute cuddly animals walking on my hand, yet when I show them to my friends, they would not get scared, but rather disgusted and said things such as “Eww. Why is that crawling on your hand?” While a caterpillar is not a salamander, the concept was similar. Kids were adapted to be disgusted by “creepy crawlers” and fear them, and part of the blame goes to parents. While some parents don’t fear these sorts of animals, they don’t tell their kids not to fear nor accept them, and so when the kids see these animals, they fear what they don’t understand. In my opinion, it is important to get the kids to interact with these animals and not be afraid of them. As David Suzuki states, parents need to understand that by not letting our kids understand and engage in their curiosity unbiased, they are harming them with “the unspoken, negative lessons [they] are conveying to [their] children” (Suzuki