Seeing the Next Century Through Youthful Eyes

For some children, the future could be an interplanetary frolic; others fear our own world will be laid waste by pollution and violence.

Fifth- and sixth-graders in Germany, India, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Russia and the United States were asked about what they expect of the new century. Here are some of their answers:

Describe the world as you expect it in the 21st century.

“We will be dependent on machines. In several decades, human beings will be androids and everyone becomes a genius just by putting knowledge into their brain. It may be easier to raise children. Since we will be all geniuses, there won’t be any schools, only cram schools. Androids will develop more machines.”

Mami Yamaguchi, Japan

“I think in 20 years we’ll be in a world totally saturated by violence in general. I also think water will be scarce and there will be great losses of life. Pollution will finish off a large part of the flora and fauna and will affect all living things. Electricity, which is so necessary, will be available only to the upper class.”

Dinorah Yesenia Frias Garcia

Mexico

“When I travel in my world and there will be peace, I will be able to take my children and my wife to travel in Jordan and any other country. I will try to make peace and travel as much as possible. I will also serve in the IDF, the Israeli Defense Force.”

Zini Avihu, Israel

“I’ll sleep as I normally do in my bed and in the morning I’ll ride a conveyor belt to the breakfast table. Then I’ll slide along a tube to school.”

Niqui B., Germany

“The world I live in then will probably be a big and hot wasteland. But I think technology will advance so that I will live in a capsule that has generated oxygen and electricity.”

Hannah Gellerstedt, U.S.

“Today’s world is very boring, that is, just get up in the morning, eat breakfast and go to school. But the next world will be very interesting. . . . There would be no money, and when we go to the shop, everything would be free and so amazing.”

Astha Gupta, India

“It will be peaceful and the air will be clean. I can spend the day peacefully and lazily. I will design clothes and sell them at my store and teach people about Japanese kimono. Sometimes animals will come into my store. I hope in future human beings and animals are more equal.”

Mayu Hirooka, Japan

Imagine that you are a grown-up and have your own family: How will your children’s lives be different from your own?

“ ‘Mom, what’s a book?’ ”

Stephanie McLeod, U.S.

“Home tutors will teach through television. You will ask teachers and friends questions through a computer that is school. Therefore you won’t need any notebooks, pencils and erasers, which will be much more convenient. The kids will be happier.”

Kazumi Nunokawa, Japan

“They wouldn’t go to school in these heavily crowded buses. They would have a separate limo for them and all the luxuries they would have. But this doesn’t mean I will spoil them. They must study like I do.”

Prachi Shrivastava, India

“I think that most kids might be a little more spoiled and/or lazy, because as our technology ‘improves,’ our lives will get easier and requiring not half the work. I will do my best to keep this from happening to my kids, though.”

Jo Warren, U.S.

“I thought that they will play with the children of aliens and buy expensive things each day. I thought that when my children will be at age 10, they will be able to handle spaceships and go to other planets without my permission.”

Shrey Datta, India

“My children will have computerized robots. They will play with weapons because weapons won’t hurt people. Any time someone uses a weapon to shoot or stab someone, the affected body part or organ will regenerate.”

Eran Bilbul, Israel

“My children would not have Super Nintendos but they would have Pokemon.”

Haynes Chewning, U.S.

“There will be no more ‘Mom, what’s for dinner?’ They’ll probably ask this question to a robot.”

Lara Miller, U.S.

“I want my children to play as much as they want, not like my life, which is study, study and more study. I will let them play as much as they do their homework.”

Natsumi Ogawa, Japan

Tell of something about the world now that you hope will change in the future--maybe something that you would try to help change.

“I would like to hope that in the future, the world will improve. Humanity will admit its mistakes--eternal wars, misunderstanding, hatred--and will become more patient with others.”

Yuri Kulakov, Russia

“I think I will become the king of all the galaxies and will stop the war between galaxies. I will do this so that the next advanced millennium would be better than this war-full millennium.”

Ankur Zutshi, India

“I wish for world peace, as God didn’t create us and the world so we could destroy it and ourselves. Unfortunately, there will always be people that think the only way to live well is with money or power.”

Maximilian S., Germany

” 1/8I’d like to end 3/8 pollution, muggings and child abuse. I’d help by supporting them 1/8my children 3/8 and helping them believe in themselves. Because we’re in very bad times for children.”

Zaira Shanal Rivera Soto

Mexico

“There is a growing number of people who commit crimes using the Internet and phones. I want to change things for them so they will not have any discontent in their heart.”

Yasuyuki Niki, Japan

“I hope cigarettes will be gone because just smelling the cigarette smoke gives me a headache.”

Chiaki Kobayashi, Japan

“I would like to live in a world where all people live in harmony, where there are no wars, and people don’t have to leave their homeland, and where all people have work. I’d also like there to be no terrorists in the world, because it’s mean to take people hostage or blow up houses where people are sleeping.”

Masha Kobyakova, Russia

“Most of the people don’t have good jobs, so that is the problem. They should be helped so that they don’t admire other people’s property. Because if they are not helped, other people become thieves and start stealing, killing others.”

David Oduor, Kenya

“Today’s world is cruel. Humans and animals suffer too much. I only wish that everyone would be a little friendlier to one another. If that happened, then handicapped people could be treated better also. They’re only a little different. Also, foreigners welcome us; why can’t we do the same? There is so much I don’t understand. For example, why is there no justice?”

Antje K., Germany

“Maybe the people shall be rich. There will be no poor.”

Rahab Ndimo, Kenya

“I think the hole in the ozone should be fixed. Either someone comes up with an ozone patch or it gets worse. If it gets worse, then we’ll have to come up with global air coolers or something.”

Ethan Sawyer, U.S.

“People of villages will get out of rubbish such as purifying the water with cow dung cakes.”

Gaurave Rastogi, India

“I also would like to see the life expectancy go up so maybe I’ll get to see the 22nd century.”

Drew Williamson, U.S.

One hundred years ago, we didn’t have cars or airplanes or television. What kind of inventions do you think we’ll have in 100 years that we don’t have now?

“I’d like them to invent a time machine so we could get to know other eras, other people, other dialects, other animal species and help them survive, and that they invent an anti-violence vaccine.”

Dinorah Yesenia Frias Garcia

Mexico

“Maybe cook-pots with a clock and display that would tell me how much longer the food had to cook. Or an electric toilet brush, a watch that gave you your horoscope.”

Hanno K., Germany

“A car that floats like a jellyfish using electricity. A television that floats in the air; when you are not watching, it floats around, but when you watch, it stays.”

Kumiko Ito, Japan

“Let’s say I want to fly to New York. I would go to the kitchen, start the motor of the house and fly there within my own house.”

Carmel Shiloni, Israel

“Cars that are run by different liquids. Electric dogs. Electric cats that bark like dogs. You never know.”

Lakia Taylor, U.S.

“I want there to be a machine that makes us happy.”

Odellia Lahami, Israel

Tell us about one thing that stands out in your mind that happened to you recently, something that you’ll remember for a long time.

“I had a boyfriend who was ugly but who had good thoughts and his feelings were good and he went to the United States and he died on the way; that made a big impression.”

Maria del Pilar Guzman Sanches

Mexico

“We went swimming out in the ocean and the bottom of the ocean looked beautiful. As it got deeper, I could see the sandy bottom of the ocean and it was bright blue.”

Tomoka Hayashi, Japan

“I had a rabbit that they bought for my birthday and when he was 4 months old he died because of the heat because rabbits can’t survive a heat wave. I will always remember him.”

Anat Avraham, Israel

“The most important thing I remember . . . is when the price of salt was increasing quickly. It changed from 4 rupees to 30 rupees in one day.”

Shrey Datta, India

“The bar mitzvah of my older brother when there was the call to the Torah and a fight broke out, someone pushed the father of my friend and broke his sunglasses and he got hit in the nose.”

Carmel Shiloni, Israel