Reading both articles the other day based off of Mark Bauerlein's book The Dumbest Generation proved to be both beneficial and insightful. It was interesting to see the different opinions of two people over 30 who could supposedly be “trusted”, according to Bauerlein. I have to agree more with the article written by Sharon Begley. She makes some good contradicting points by informing the audience that maybe it’s our generations ignorance, not lack of intelligence, that makes us seem indifferent to history. I don’t believe that our generation is “dumber” but our culture is evolving and adapting to different things and technology that wasn’t useful to our parent’s generation. Sharon states, “He is a little late to this party of course. The old have been wringing their hands about the young’s cultural wastelands and ignorance of history…” She’s right in every aspect. Since the beginning of time, our society has gone through a vicious cycle of criticizing the new ideas formed by the newer generations. A girl in class yesterday made a good point that Seniors in high school despise the freshman but can’t even pull a good explanation as to why. Our generation isn’t becoming more stupid; we’re simply changing. According to studies, any country that uses an IQ test, including America, has had increasing scores since the 1930’s. Our thinking capacity is still hard at work, and helps us everyday in thinking logically but we are simply becoming more interested in the social aspects that technology has to offer, instead of studying ancient history. But we shouldn’t let our ignorance get the best of us. Although we see no point to certain classes, a point was made yesterday, that we may never know when we will use information learned in High school or college. It could, in fact come in handy some day. But again, does this really make us stupid? Or does it mean we just need a priority check?
Great post Katie!
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you said here and I like your ideas. I definantly think that our generations problem is ignorance, not lack of intelligence. I like the example you used about the High School seniors and freshmen, it is so true that we are so quick it judge younger generations because we, for some reason, feel superior. Also, though there may be some harm in valuing social networks instead of history, it is a good thing we are different from other generations because without that we would never evolve. In the end though, I think we in fact do need a priority check.
I agree with Alex agreeing with you. You have a nice post. And I was just thinking while i was reading this. It seems that the job market is better for people who are skillful in technology as oppose to history, plus I'm fairly certain the pay is substantially better. So this could also support your argument that we are adapting to different things. If you look at where all our money goes nowadays, many people put it towards technology, and food. This is were all the money is going and obviously people are going to pick up on this and pursue careers in this direction. So Good post. I enjoyed reading it.
ReplyDeletewell to answer the question personally, maybe it is a priority check ! i agree like, derek and alex stated above, nice post ! As young adults maybe it what we think is important and that was part of my own argument. nice job.
ReplyDeleteI like the point you had to make about it being ignorance and not so much being dumb. I agree with this and the necessity for a priority check. I also like the way you went about writing your post.
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