A Response to “A Video of Students Today”

This entry is in response to the following video:

After watching this video, I would like to address some logical problems with a number of the opinions expressed by the students. I will mention first off, though, that I really like the way the creators/collaborators structured this short video. It is thought-provoking, and I really appreciate the conversation it is starting (or continuing) across the country, specifically regarding our educational system. I am grateful for anything that promotes healthy dialogue and discussion about all levels of education (public and private) within the United States. If anyone wants to read more about this video project and the professor who began it, you can find more info here.

In addition, I want to acknowledge here that one of the biggest reasons this professor is starting this conversation is so that educators and concerned citizens everywhere can reflect together on whether or not how we teach needs to more closely reflect the nature of this “information age,” where information is freely available in most developed countries and is no longer a precious commodity, as it was when many of our most cherished and traditional ways of “doing school” came about. I fully support having this conversation, and I believe we need to always be thinking about the best way to teach and reach any generation. However, the nature of my response is solely based (at this time) on the students’ direct statements as given in this video.

And now for a few critiques of some of the student content, particularly a few of the complaints:

1) The students are complaining that they are inheriting problems they didn’t create. We all inherit the problems of the previous generation, even if we didn’t create these problems ourselves. This has been true for every generation that follows another one. Your generation is no exception. Before you say that the problems facing you, however, are greater than what any other generation has ever experienced, please remember that you haven’t yet been drafted into a world war. Most of you have grown up with enough to eat. Most of you have been privileged enough to attend all 12 or 13 years of formal schooling that’s offered before college in this country, and then you became part of a yet smaller subgroup that had the chance to go to college. Remember that the generations before us didn’t automatically have this chance for an education. For instance, on my father’s side of the family, my grandfather only had the chance to get through 8th grade. My grandmother made it to the beginning of 11th grade before she dropped out to work. On my mom’s side, my grandmother (the second youngest of 14 children) had to leave her home and family as a young teenager in order to finish school, as that particularly rural area of North Dakota didn’t yet have any form of high school. She went to board with another family during this time in exchange for labor. This family treated her very poorly, viewing her as their live-in servant and refusing to allow her to eat at the table with their family members (she had to chow in a corner of the kitchen, out of their sight). She stuck it out and graduated, went to beauty school, and supported herself on her own earnings well into her 30s.

2) The students believe that what they’re learning isn’t relevant to their lives. One thing young people of this age group often lack is good judgment, or put in another way, wisdom. They haven’t lived very long and often can’t possibly even know yet what will be “relevant” to their future lives. This complaint confuses me, as the students indicated that they will most likely get a job after graduation that does not even exist right now during their college years. Very possible. So if this job has not yet even been created, how can you as a student be so positive that what you’re learning right now is completely irrelevant to this unknown future employment? Hmmm…you might want to think through this one a bit more.

3) Some students announced that they are making a choice to Facebook throughout their entire class periods. Umm, okay. This is a choice they’re making that certainly helps contribute to their feelings of disconnectedness regarding what’s going on in the classroom. It is still, however, a choice for which they need to be held responsible: it is disrespectful to the classroom they’re in and to the teacher who’s trying to teach them something that he/she believes is helpful and “relevant” to their present and future. They are deliberately choosing to be bystanders in the matter of their own education and refusing to be actively engaged. It should also be mentioned that this attitude and behavior is discourteous to all actively engaged and interested students who may still be in the class and who are attempting to get all of their money’s worth out of the college learning experience. Now, since the students have already told us they have no idea what their employment will be after graduation, wouldn’t it be in their best interest to study hard and pay attention to everything they can in all of their classes, as they can’t know for sure what will be directly “relevant” until years later? (Of course, one could also convincingly argue that the work habits being established through this process, i.e., that of being daily confronted with a ton of information, very limited time to take it in, with very fuzzy parameters for what, if any, of this will be necessary for future remembrance or learning, are more than relevant to every day of their future life. No matter what field they may find themselves in, technology has radically accelerated the process by which we take in information, sort it, process it, keep it, or throw it out. Short of an entire-earth nuclear holocaust, that isn’t likely to change anytime soon.)

4) They expressed concern that their computer cost more than some people make in a year. Just because your computer cost more than what some people in some countries make in a year does not mean that you should now throw away any and all opportunities you’re given that are not in fact given to every other human being who is currently on this planet. Why not consider taking the education you’re being given (or paying for, whatever the case may be) and turning it into something that can assist those folks economically through future empowerment? There are all kinds of ways in which you can turn the opportunities you’ve been given into chances to help the less-privileged achieve their own goals. Here’s another possibility: buy a cheaper computer. Why not eBay your expensive computer, buy a cheaper computer with the proceeds, take what’s left from the sale and donate it to a non-profit that attempts to help others help themselves? It is entirely possible that by becoming a careful student of history, economics, power, globalization, the rise and fall of empires, etc., that you will in fact be in a position to help create change for some of the global economic inequities that exist in this world. However, it is also most likely that choosing to Facebook through every college class on your “expensive” computer while simultaneously text-messaging all your friends on your cell phone isn’t going to help create any solutions for any of those billion+ people you mentioned who make less than $1 a day.

5) The students indicate they’ll read only 8 books this year, but they’ll read thousands of web pages. This one’s pretty easy: take the one-and-a-half hours of nightly TV you’re watching and read. Problem solved. Or get those lovely things known as recorded books (available for free from your local library) and “read’ this way while doing the multi-tasking you mentioned you’ve been forced into getting so good at. Besides, this free solution might also help cut down on that $20,000 you said you’re going to owe after graduation.

6) One student expresses their glum dismay that he/she had to buy a $100 textbook “that they never opened”. Hmmm…here’s a solution. Take hand. Lift front cover of book. Begin reading from left to right (assuming the book is in English). You have now opened the $100 textbook, and (hopefully) you’ll be learning something from it. See, that really wasn’t that hard. May all of our problems be solved so easily.

7) The belief is expressed that filling out a test (on a Scantron sheet) will not have any impact on the global problems of “war, inequality, ethnic conflict, pollution.” Well, again, it depends on your perspective. I believe it was Karl Marx (forgive my faulty memory) who said that with 26 foot soldiers he could change the world (he was referring to the alphabet). Last I checked, he certainly succeeded, didn’t he? History is rife with ordinary people who read a life-changing idea or came up with a fresh perspective on a problem and ran with it, changing the world in the process. The thing with Karl Marx, though, is that he first had to have those 26 foot soldiers before he could change the world. Gandhi needed to have a perspective worth making speeches about before he could raise up a global movement. The early settlers of Rhode Island had to do some careful thinking in order to come to the conclusion that freedom of conscience is a necessary right for every human; it was only once they had reached this conclusion that they could then legislate this reality. Ideas can and do change the world. So pay attention to those ideas you’re having to write about/multiple choice about/short answer about/fill in circle A/B/C/D about; those ideas may in fact first change your world, and then by extension change the lives of the rest of the world.

My final concern about this video is that I see quite a bit of what looks suspiciously like self-pity, a refusal to take responsibility, and a lack of objective student engagement in the concerns that are being raised about their educational experience. Oh, they’re engaged all right, but only on their own terms (what they decide is relevant, what they decide interests them, etc. If anything does not strike their young minds as not being of immediate interest or of extremely obvious help to them, they are throwing it all out, even if the people/professors who are attempting to give them the information they consider necessary are decades older in both life experience and educational attainment.) A good education boils down ultimately to personal responsibility: taking charge of one’s own education. A student can blame the teachers for lack of relevancy, the computer industry for being grossly wasteful, the previous generation for dumping all kinds of problems on them, etc, etc., but ultimately only you can decide what is important in your life, and you alone will decide (or apathetically refuse to decide) what to do about it. Now, if you truly know and believe that college will not help you in any way in your future life, then you’re right…college is not the place for you. Drop out and make a better living in some other way.

On the other hand, consider reframing your concerns and looking at them through the eyes of previous generations. You may find your perspective irrevocably changed…