On Mar 3, 2005, at 5:40 PM, 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
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