The article, The Dumbest Generation, was quite shocking. One of the opening quotes says, “two thirds of high-school seniors, in 2006, could not explain an old photo of a sign over a theater reading COLORED ENTRANCE.” Speaking for myself, I would be very much capable of explaining the meaning and significance of the sign. Therefore, it is hard for me to swallow this statistic. In the clip we viewed in class, Mark Bauerlein says that no one should trust anyone under the age of 30, due to our ignorance. Bauerlein places the majority of the blame on our generation. However, if we are unaware of such major past events whose fault is that really? I think it has a lot to do with the education system in America. I do not think that the educators are bad, I think they are told what they must teach, and teach so that their students will do well on state tests, so that they can keep their jobs. We may not know everything there is to know, but I do not think we are dumb, or even close to it.
Furthermore, the article discusses multitasking. It says, “multitasking forces the brain to share processing resources, so even if the tasks don’t use the same regions, there is some shared infrastructure that gets overloaded. Chronic multitasking—texting and listening to your iPod and updating your Facebook page while studying for your exam on the Italian Renaissance—might also impair learning.” I think older generations are very critical of all the multitasking our generation attempts to do. I think we grew up in a very different time. We have grown up with constant noise around us, bombarded with advertisements, that we have had to become good at processing what is important to us, what is not, and how to handle all of this being thrown at us at once. Therefore, I believe this has made us more capable of multitasking, and I do not think it is necessarily a bad thing, or taking away from our education.
I agree with the multi-tasking quote in that our generation can do it successfully, so why stop. "Time is Money" is a great motto for our generation since we can save time doing a couple things at once. Personally, I think if the generation above us could multi-task as good as us they would do it just as much as we do.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with the multi-tasking quote. Are generation is good at doing it so we shouldn't stop. That doesn't make us dumb. I also agree that what is really the problem when you look at why people don't know the significance of the 'colored entrance' sign. Our school system might need to be looked into and what they are doing to teach us these things, not just automatically putting it on us as individuals and making us the dumbest generation.
ReplyDeleteI don't think all of the noise makes us better at processing which information is important. Until we can text and drive our car without crashing then we've gotten better at processing whats important. However, I do agree we are far better at multitasking then other generations though. We can accomplish so much more with all the information more readily available to us.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with the high school teachers only teaching us what we have to know so they can keep their jobs. I also think that our generation is going to become able to process what is important and what is not while multitasking which could be either a good or a bad thing for us.
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