* Or, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30
by Mark Bauerlein
Hennepin County Library hardcover 236 pages
genre: non-fiction, commentary, society
I'm not sure I'm ready to write a response to this book. There were times I thought, "You may say you're not a curmudgeon, sir, but you sure sound like one." Other times, I thought, "This is so very sad. The proliferation of self-centered, shallow young people may well ruin our society." I often thought of the many young people I know who are intelligent, curious, well-read, problem-solvers.
Here are some of the notes I made.
page 16 - After sharing some of the scary statistics on how little the Millennials read and know, the author says, "Most young Americans possess little of the knowledge that makes for an informed citizen, and too few of them master the skills needed to negotiate an information-heavy, communication-based society and economy. Furthermore, they avoid the resources and media that might enlighten them and boost their talents. An anti-intellectual outlook prevails in their leisure lives, squashing the lessons of school, and instead of producing a knowledgeable and querulous young mind, the youth culture of American society yields an adolescent consumer enmeshed in juvenile matters and secluded from adult realities."
page 52 - "But these discrepancies indicate that leisure reading does have substantial influence on school performance, much more than one would assume after listening to public and professional discourse about reading scores, which tend to focus on the classroom and the curriculum, not on the leisure lives of teens."
page 68 - He identifies some troubling paradoxes about Millennials, who have so many resources and yet are declining in most measures of knowledge. "If the young have acquired so much digital proficiency, and if digital technology exercises their intellectual faculties so well, then why haven't knowledge and skill levels increased accordingly? As we've seen, wealth, cultural access, and education levels have climbed, but not intellectual outcomes. If the Information Age solicits quicker and savvier literacies, why do so many new entrants into college and work end up in remediation? . . . If their digital talents bring the universe of knowledge into their bedrooms, why don't they handle knowledge questions better?"
page 101 - He identifies the transition from print books to digital media with an observation about history and civilization. "In 50 years, as Boomers and X-ers pass away, digital natives grow up, and technology proceeds apace, civilization will look different." In a way, it seems that he's being too dramatic. Yet isn't it true that as the years pass, society changes? The world I live in now is different from the world of my childhood. In some ways, that's a good thing.
page 126 - "Digital natives are a restless group, and like all teens and young adults they are self-assertive and insecure, living in the moment but worrying about their future, crafting elaborate e-profiles but stumbling through class assignments, absorbing the minutiae of youth culture and ignoring works of high culture, heeding this season's movie and game releases as monumental events while blinking at the mention of the Holocaust, the Cold War, or the War on Terror." This one troubles me because it rings pretty true. For many students (especially in middle school), their personal ups and downs are far more insignificant than the experiences of others throughout history. I will never forget seeing the news about the tsunami that destroyed so much in 2004. A student's comment was, "Cool!" All I could think of was the suffering, the loss, the pain of survivors. Certainly NOT cool.''
page 127 - I won't quote this section, but he talks about the importance of language acquisition and practice at HOME! It is so very, very true that students show up in kindergarten with the "achievement gap" already in place! Children who grow up in homes with conversation, reading, etc. do far better in school than children who grow up in a vocabulary-poor environment. "Everything depends on the oral and written language the infant-toddler-child-teen hears and reads throughout the day, for the amount of vocabulary learned inside the fifth-grade classroom alone doesn't come close to the amount needed to understand fifth-grade textbooks."
page 136 - "That's the pull of immaturity, and technology has granted young Americans ever more opportunities to go with it, not outgrow it." "Instead of opening adolescents and young adults to worldly realities, acquainting them with the global village, inducting them into the course of civilization, or at least the Knowledge Economy, digital communications have opened them to one another - which is to say, have enclosed them in a parochial cosmos of youth matters and concerns."
page 158 - "The Web universe licenses young Americans to indulge their youth, and the ubiquitous rhetoric of personalization and empowerment - MySpace, YouTube, etc. - disguises the problem and implants false expectations well into adulthood. They don't realize that success in popular online youthworlds breeds incompetence in school and in the workplace." Certainly, students seem to thrive on peer approval and have little sense of true quality work and creativity . . .
page 199 - He writes about the double-dose of youth culture that students get during their leisure time and during their academic time. With educators striving to make lessons "relevant" to kids, tradition gets pushed aside. "In slighting the worth of tradition, in allowing teenagers to set their own concerns before the civilization of their forebears, mentors have only opened more minutes to youth contact and youth media."
page 221 - He writes about the struggles between traditionalists (think Bloom, Bennett, Bellow) and the complacency of professors and others entrusted with educating the young.
page 225-228 - In this section, he talks about the changing dynamics within the youth culture. It was fascinating, but also more anecdotal than his citing of studies. Were there intellectual slackers in the late 1930s? I'm confident there were. Are there young people today who are aware and concerned about politics, society, and change? I'm confident there are. Yes, the overarching society is different. The world is different! But I don't think that it is fair to write off the Millennials.
page 234 - He compares the current youth generation to Rip Van Winkle, sleeping through major historical changes but being unaware and unconcerned.
page 232 - I like how he calls for an intellectual "minor leagues" - where students can be encouraged, coached, and trained in intellectual thought and discussion so that ten or more years hence, they will be prepared to lead.
A worthwhile book, but I'm still pondering a lot of his material. I would love to have my sons read it and discuss it with them!
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