Parlor Spider...Step In, Little Fly

Insightful thoughts and/or rants from atop the soapbox from one who wishes to share the "right" opinion with everyone.

Tuesday, December 07, 2010

Seemingly Unaware as the World Goes By

Every now and then, events transpire that leave me so totally perplexed that I feel like I've been under house arrest in Myanmar (not great, but FAR better than being in prison there, I hear) for the past few years and have emerged, Rip van Winkle-like to a world that I do not recognize...and the reason results from the things I hear from the students with whom I work every day.
College students are expected to be somewhat cognizant of the world around them, and relatively aware of the things that make up our existence, but lately, I've been more than a little surprised by the following:

1. Three of my students have been asked as a class assignment to write a series of letters explaining either how they are young people working in the German Resistance during WWII helping Jews or a recently-returned veteran of the Viet Nam War writing Congress in hopes of getting that governing body to end the war. It was not so surprising that none of the three really knew much about either historical period, but NONE OF THEM had ever written a letter before and did not know how to go about it! Are you kidding me? (and a week later, they are still puzzled by the format)

2. Three times today I asked relatively bright students (not my usual clientele) if they knew what the historical significance of December 7th was, and none of them knew...and they really had little idea who were the "bad guys" during WW II, either, though one successfully posited "The Japanese?" after a brief discussion on the attack at Pearl Harbor.

3. As part of an assignment concerning basic ethnographic research for a writing course, one student formulated a thesis and a survey dealing with the amount of students who spent some, most, or all of their time during lecture classes sending text messages to friends. One of the more bizarre comments from a person was that she didn't really care if the professor knew since it was only a general education class which would not impact her major anyway. But that was not the most disturbing fact to emerge from the student's research was this:

one person responded to a question that asked the purpose of the text messages being sent during class with a response that stupefied me:
"sexting."
In class.
In a lecture hall.
With others sitting right next to her.
Unbelievable.
What's more...I don't even want to know.

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