Why younger students give a historian hope

What experience with younger generations offers grounds for optimism?

They usually want to learn, and repeated teaching experience shows strong curiosity and interest despite the normal difficulties of school life.

Teaching younger people in Cambridge programmes, summer schools and other settings provides the basis for this answer. Most students arrive interested in learning and ready to engage. Administrative roles sometimes expose the less enjoyable side of school life, but they do not overturn that broader impression. Curiosity is the strongest reason offered for hope.