[lbo-talk] U.S. working class: functionally literate

[joanna bujes]

I've been dealing with students for almost thirty years, one way or 
another. It kind of depends what students you're talking about.
The high school drop out rate in Oakland is 50% and overall, 
language/writing skills have seriously, seriously deteriorated.  The 
general literacy rate I noticed when I was teaching at SUNY Plattsburgh 
in 1988 was extremely low. I would say that close to half my students 
couldn't quite put two sentences together or write anything that wasn't 
a cliche. There was nothing wrong with these students: they were full of 
good will and they weren't stupid. But they did not have any idea about 
why they were in college and the arid culture they had grown up in did 
not give them much to work with.

Actually, the most interesting and deep conversations I've had with 
anyone in their twenties lately, were with kids who were either very 
skeptical about college or who had opted to skip it and learn on their own.

Joanna

Matthew Snyder wrote:


>Wojtek Sokolowski wrote: 
>  
>
>>I am not talking about "behavior problems"
>>but about general interest in learning new things - which seems to be
>>vanishing.
>>    
>>
>
>joanna bujes <jbujes at covad.net> wrote:
>  
>
>>The current coming-of-age generation has grown up in a virtually
>>content-free world. It has all been about filling in the form, attending
>>the right school, knowing the right people, mirrorring the right stuff.
>>There is no there there.
>>    
>>
>
>Seriously, and with all due respect, WTF?  This is just insulting. 
>Isn't it possible that the "new things" kids are interested in
>learning about have changed in the past couple of decades?   And that
>the ways in which kids learn have progressed at the same time?
>
>As someone who is a little older than but is taking courses with
>typical undergrads, I just don't see the evidence.  It's the course
>material and teaching strategies that haven't kept up, not the
>students.  Students are as eager to learn as (I imagine) they always
>were.  With incredible advances in classroom technology, 24x7
>networked resources, etc. it's not that students aren't interested in
>learning new things, it's that instructors for the most part are stuck
>in an older paradigm.  A classroom is a different learning environment
>than a computer and an ethernet cable, or a video game console, or
>whatever is on the horizon.  Finding the intersection is a challenge
>and not something that comes naturally for most people.  Blaming the
>students for a general lack of interest is the easy answer.
>
>I'm not trying to suggest that there's something wrong with reading
>and writing papers, or that older people can't deal with technology,
>or anything like that.  It's just that anytime I hear insults about
>younger people and their disinterest and their lack of substance and
>how much more serious it all used to be, I can't help but cry
>bullshit.
>
>--
>Matthew Snyder
>Philadelphia, PA
>___________________________________
>http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
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