Bomb the Blogosphere! (Damn Kids These Days)

An attack from the peanut gallery has had me going for the past week or so.

While on youtube, I thought I'd re-watch one of my favorite vids.



Made by none other than Kansas State University's own Prof. Wesch, the vid is a short montage of facts and figures collected from students about their own lives. Wesch has also written a great essay entitled, “Anti-teaching: Confronting the Crisis of Significance”

While surfing through the first page of comments, I noted one posted by, "Concerned4you";

As an educator, my concern is the student's lack of passion for learning. The goal of education is not self-esteem building, or play time, it is to teach you something you don't know. That will not always be fun. Sure it is easier to find it on google than to read it in a book but, you need to have a deep background to draw from. Google can't give you that. Time spent in class and in studies will provide you with that. Read the book The Dumbest generation. This is how the world see[s] you.

The book referenced is this one "The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30)" written by this profiteering jerkoff. It has a couple of pieces of evidence that support the idea that our generation, and the one growing up today, has no way of being in touch with reality and will be responsible for the destruction of America.

I was upset to read about the complete ignorance of both, "Concerned4you" and of an acclaimed professor. Maybe tenure just isn't payin' the bills nowadays, and so a financially successful book based off of placating the fear of "kids these days" is the only way Dr. Bauerlein can belong in the world that we're messing up.

If you're interested in reading an article written by the good doctor, it's entitled "8 Reasons Why This is the Dumbest Generation".

Among the article;

"The ignorance is hard to believe...these young people are uninterested in world realities. They are actively cut off from them... They are encased in more immediate realities...friends, work, clothes, cars, pop music, sitcoms, Facebook.''

Ah yes, the ever damaging "friend". Remember kids, having friends is a straight path to ignorance and unless you want to be the laughing stock in the "real world" you better not have any. And those damned "clothes"...The horror, the horror.

"It's the era of child-centered classrooms and self-esteem grading.'' says Dr. Bauerlein. "[They're dumb because] Their teachers don't tell them so."

So people OVER 30 are the problem to. Great. But I don't think a book entitled, "America Blows We Are All As Good As Dead" would sell as well.

And...my favorite,

"Grand Theft Auto IV...All that video use", Bauerlein says, "has hurt in the classroom."

Quickly! If you're in a room and see any type of gamestation, destroy it! Smash it! For the good of the country and your child's future!

__________________________________________________________________________________


New ideas mean new ways of thinking. Our world isn't the one that Dr. Bauerlein was born into, just like his world wasn't like his parents.

I work at a school where the incoming Kindergarteners don't know what it was like to grow up in a world before 9/11. Imagine that if you can. Completely different from the 60's and 70's that Bauerlein grew up in, and the 90's that I enjoyed.

Some individuals will never want to obtain the basic knowledge, or if you believe in the "No Child Left Behind" act, maybe everyone will! But when we teach our youth a doctored up lesson on, say Columbus for example, what does it matter if they know what they've been taught? If we taught genocide for what it really was, would we still want the kids to celebrate Columbus Day? My point is, I could brainwash anyone to retain knowledge on anything; A green cheese moon, monsters under the bed, Santa Claus...but would this knowledge be *applicable*?

Maybe that's why New York Public School systems are willing to pay up to $50 cash for acing state assessments. And it works. Money talks, you want kids to learn? They'll do it better if they get paid. Does it mean that education is working though?

That is the problem with education today. A real education; one where we know how to interact with your fellow peers, problem solve, and apply knowledge effectively, is infinitely more useful than knowing "facts" or carrot-and-sticking kids to bend to state standards.

I own Grand Theft Auto IV, I love learning, I love Philosophy, I know where Iraq is on a map. Generations are different, and people in those generations are different from others in that generation. According to Baurlein, 63 percent of my generation supposedly can't find Iraq on a map...but 37 percent can, and I hope that 37 percent will succeed for the sake of your future, Dr. Baurlein's future, and my future.

This 37 percent might even be able to figure out this here dang con-flabbe'd intertube mAh-chine. So's we can talk at one 'nother and sh're ideas an' such. Maybe even faster than af'er the telephone and that th'er fax mAh-chine. Fix' them th're prob-uhlems like global warmin' and 'merica's fallin' 'conomy.


"The [My] Dumbest Generation" might error in some ways, but intergenerational chastising has always been around, and has always been useless. This glorified op-ed piece will not define 41.2 percent of our population. "Get out the way if you can't lend a hand/Oh, the times they are a changin'." Written in '64 Dr.Baurlein...do you remember that one?

If theres a problem, help us fix it. Take a chance, like Peter. Why don't you put something up Dr. Baurlein? Put your lectures up on youtube, make a facebook group, Skype me, Twitter me, Jott yourself, Wiki yourself, Google us, you and I.

I mean it. Please help us.

If none of that sounds appealing to you, then shut it. When you're in your retirement home, we'll just pay less attention to you than we did our state assessment tests. Because we'll be out there...with our "Friends" and "Clothes". Damn kids these days.