The Dumbest Generation

I'm intrigued by a couple of conflicted texts. One is Everything Bad is Good for You by Steven Johnson. Here Johnson argues that today's popular culture is NOT making kids less intelligent. In fact, he argues just the opposite. I find that interesting.

As a teacher, I hear a lot of parents, administrators, and other teachers that our current generation of students are the worst ever.

This of course is just part of what I call (and I don't think I came up with this term) the myth of nostalgia. That means that as any generation gets older, they tend to romanticize their past while contrasting it with the upcoming generation and concluding that "those damn kids . . . the world's going to hell in a hand basket."

That, of course, is not the truth. It's just what every generation does. If I'm not mistaken the person who founded the Boy Scouts did so because he was horrified by the degenerates he saw fighting in WWI. Now, I would be the first - after having studied a lot about WWI - that those young men who were butchered in that war, were anything but degenerates. In fact, I'm sure that the man who founded the Boy Scouts probably had his grand father conclude that his grandson's generation were a bunch of degenerates.

So when I came across Johnson's book, I was very intrigued. I mean you can always come across books ranting on how dumb our country is rapidly becoming.

Some of Johnson's claims are interesting. He posits that such things as fantasy sports and role playing games call for a considerable use of imaginative skills. He also argues that many of our most popular shows, The Simpsons and Seinfeld, call for viewers to recognize allusions and other elements of figurative language. Al the video games teach higher order thinking skills and problem solving strategies. And that's not even touching all of the technical information and skills this current generation is practically born with because of the technology they are immediately immersed in.

To contrast Johnson's views I am going to read The Dumbest Generation by Mark Bauerlein. While I wait for his book to arrive via amazon (if I had a Kindle like Kristie, I'd just download it), I found a list of Eight reasons why this is the dumbest generation.

1. They make excellent "Jaywalking" targets. He argues that because of their technologies, this generation is isolating itself. This, I must admit, is difficult to argue. All I have to do is look over to my right where KoKo sits in the living room with her laptop, cell phone, and iPod Touch. She had everything she needs to keep busy and isolated right next to her. She texts her friends, checks out facebook, watches idiocy on Youtube and lives in her own little bubble.

But was I so different 18 years ago locked in my room with my stereo on and my nose in a magazine or book?

2. They don't read nor do they wish to. This is the aliteracy. They can read but they choose not to.

Again, is this really so different? If in the 1950s fewer than half of students graduated high school, what must the literacy rates have been? I've always wanted to travel back in time and peek in on the 'classic' Leave it to Beaver style family that my mind always associates with "the Good Old Days." I'm rather sure I wouldn't see them all hunkered around the fireplace reading the classics. I'm sure there would be grandpa complaining about the radio being on. The father would be working late. The mother would be washing dishes and the children probably listening to the radio or if they were reading, they could have been reading the ten cent horror comics (DC and so on) that the government would soon seek to ban. All the while the grandpa laments, "Don't kids play outside anymore" as he hearkens back to a generation earlier when the child labor laws were nonexistent and he simply had to play (or work) because there was little else to do.

3. They can't spell. Well, I can't argue this one. They can't.

But do they have to? Times change. Do elementary teachers still bother to teach penmanship or cursive? Do math teachers still use the slide rule? I'm sure English teachers from 30 or 40 years ago could not fathom what might happen to our language and writing if students didn't know how to diagram a sentence. I think the spelling point is kind of inconsequential.

4. They get ridiculed for original thought, good writing. He argues - quite rightly I might add - that 'good, clever' writing gets made fun of on facebook or myspace. Even the writing on Wikipedia is dry and rather unoriginal.

I'm all for more voice and style in student writing, so I'm totally with Bauerlein on this one.

5. Too many video games. Students waste too much time playing these.

Tough to argue this one. But how can you blame the kids? Look at our society. Nintendo spends at least twice as much on their product than we spend on education.

6. Students don't store the information. He argues that students who rush to the internet for info and research don't actually store that info in their minds. The internet - despite all its potential - is just a delivery system. Where is all the uploading and storage?

Come on, man! I've sat through plenty of classes looooong before the internet was commonly used. I scrawled notes and memorize them all the night before the test and let all that 'vital' info seep right out my ear as I walked out of class after the test.

You can't blame that one on this generation of students. You can blame that on too many years of horseshit teachers lecturing and expecting students to be empty receptacles. I recall one of my favorite quotes, "The best way to get information from the teacher to the student's tablet without touching the brain is to lecture."

7. Because their teachers don't tell them so. Parents don't grab their kids' cell phones at 10 and make them go to bed or study. Teachers don't demand students to focus and pay attention. This generation is drowning in self-centerdness.

There's a lot of truth here. KoKo goes to sleep with her cell phone in her hand and wakes up with it just a few inches from her grasp. And so did all of her friends when they spent the night last week.

Bauerlein claims that we have to get away from child-centered classrooms and self-esteem grading. I agree with the former. I think one thing my College Comp class is learning is that I don't grade them on how hard they work or how much they want to do well. The finished essay is what is graded. If it's great, it's great - whether it took them half an hour or two weeks. If it's crap, it's crap - again, whether they wrote it the night before or spent an hour every night that week.

However, I am all for child-centered classrooms. In fact, the worst teaching I ever did was when my classroom was teacher-centered. I think that's one reason so much poor teaching goes on at the university level. They hire experts in history or literature or chemistry, but they aren't passionate about their students or teaching well.

So when those students get out into the teaching field, what do they do? They repeat the vicious circle. And we wonder why we are in the educational state we are in!

8. Because they are young . . . and stupid. It is simply in the DNA of young people to do stupid things because they think they know better.

But isn't that the charm of being young? Don't we all wish we could have a little of that naivety back? I certainly don't wish to be 18 again, but I liked thinking I had all the answers instead of knowing - as I do now - that I never will.