Monday, October 11, 2010

"Connecting With Millenials"

Voila, an article confirming my worst fears:
http://www.psfk.com/2010/09/how-to-connect-with-millennials.html

Kindly note the end bit of Number 1: "They do not want to read instructions."

Holy Mother of God.

PSFK is a 'trends analysis' company that I think is meant to provide information to marketers of stuff. Or ideas. Or whatever it is that the Millennials are out there buying--like Farmville credits.

I am struck, too, by the narrowness of my own chronological escape from the Millennial generation. On the other hand, perhaps my parents ensured that I avoided such madness by keeping me chained to the plow that split furrows into the rocky soils of our smallholding while the cows gazed placidly at my sackcloth garments.

(NB: We had neither cows nor plows, but this one time my dad's friend, a recently minted local police officer, handcuffed me to the soda fountain in Dad's store. I was six. It was an uncomfortable harbinger of Christmases future when I would spend every available day between taking or giving exams and Christmas "flogging stuff to the poor bastards," as Dad says. He has rather a Dickensian bent, my pops.)

21 comments:

  1. Umm.this is just personal preference and all, and I know the inherited narrative is that students are continuously on the decline, but here goes. I'm either at the forefront of Gen X or the tail of the Baby Boom. My first years of students were all Gen X'ers, and I found them unbearably entitled, confrontational, provincial, and smugly judgmental. Oh, lord, the stories I heard about wicked people presuming to speak Spanish on the streets of Miami.

    I've actually preferred the students in the last six or seven years. Of course, I've changed, too. I think I'm a somewhat better teacher, and I'm more tolerant. Or my gates were burst asunder by the barbarians and the temples to my academic standards pillaged and fired. Some of both, probably.

    I like lamenting the boorishness, flakiness, and lack of learning of today's students as much as any. But I'm still mostly entertained by them. Plus, I'll take their Beiber/Frodo hair over the soul patch, sideburns, and backwards baseball cap any day. And that stuff in the article about emotional connections? I think it makes them more interesting--sometimes odd--but interesting.

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  2. I'm inclined to take such pronouncements with a grain of salt; it seems to me that they are describing -- albeit with a more positive, or at least tolerant, spin -- the sorts of preferences and behaviors older adults have been noticing, and complaining about, in teenagers and younger adults for millenia. But the fact that merchants are out there encouraging such attitudes (because the millenials are a large market with, at least up until a year or two ago, a lot of money available to them for discretionary spending) doesn't help (sadly, it may be the recession and the end of houses-as-ATMs more than anything else that makes acting like an adult -- including delaying gratification -- fashionable again).

    That said, this line also caught my eye: "Marketers should be watchful of the time it takes them to respond to customer service comments on [suspect that should be "or"] inquiries" -- such as requests for grades 5 minutes after the paper/exam was turned in, perhaps?

    But the following offers a bit more hope, I think, and perhaps some ideas for the kinds of projects and approaches that might resonate with the majority of our current students (the link between consumerism and "values" leaves me feeling queasy, but at least what we're "selling" -- however reluctantly -- has considerably more real value than fizzy water, high fructose corn syrup, and caffeine): "We know that Millennials have very strong values about making the world a better place, taking the power within their hands and making change … real. It’s all about building an emotional connection. It’s all about the conversations that they’re looking for and it’s not only about supporting a cause, it’s about supporting an idea that they believe in, that they can relate to on a personal level. . .The feeling of autonomy and the ability to choose that the Pepsi Refresh project offers is democracy and engagement at it’s [its] best."

    I'm all for "autonomy and the ability to choose" and "engagement," and I really try to foster those through the assignments I design. (Too much emotion, I confess, I could do without). Of course, more than a few students complain when I expect them to -- for instance -- come up with their own paper topics, within parameters I design.

    P.S. I can't help noticing that, with no deliberate attempt to do so, I've found one typo and one punctuation mistake in the linked article. Looking back, I see several more. On the other hand, I have to admit that I read straight past them the first time. Must be getting used to such things. Sigh.

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  3. P.P.S. I cross-posted with Perfesser Slaughter. I have to say that I, too, rather prefer the current crop of students to the (generally) more entitled, money-driven cohort immediately before. Current students, on average, do seem more inclined to look beyond themselves, try to make the world a better place, etc., etc. If they're going to succeed, they need to learn patience, and to use their heads as well as their hearts in deciding how to spend their time and energy, and -- yes -- to follow directions (and write good ones for others who might follow in their footsteps), but it feels like there are some encouraging qualities for us to work with there.

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  4. I've only taught my own classes for seven years, and I am conscious of my lack of extended perspective on this...and how young I was when I started teaching and thus how little cultural separation existed between myself and my students. Now I am the crotchety silverback, at least in their estimation.

    I wonder if I am more aware of the neediness / snowflakeness this term because I am not supervising independent projects. In the past,my students doing independent work have in fact redeemed the lot of them to me by displaying the positive qualities of the Millenials. The other redemption comes from teaching freshman comp. and actually seeing a student's writing improve over a semester.

    I guess I just miss those folks and therefore hate on my current ones all the harder (and more unfairly.)

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  5. Well, first, Cassandra, I agreed with your smart post.

    Second, BlackDog, feel the hate! It's OK, and what this site was made for. Trust me, someone just slipped me a chirpiness mickey in my coffee. That or I managed to run the poison out of me on the treadmill this morning. Plus, it helps that I'm 80+ percent though this round of grading (for I have seen the promised land!) and, thanks to Turnitin, I haven't had a single snotass ask me all semester if I have a stapler wrapped in a balloon and secreted in my colon (Dude, just, just...OMG, WHERE did you get the idea that I'm going to friggin' lug a stapler so you can do what any normal human being can accomplish with the dedication of a few brain cells or a couple of shekels?).

    Talk to me next week when I get the next batch in and realize they haven't written on the right topic. And they certainly haven't followed instructions on organization, form, or purpose, despite copious explanations in writing (multiple places), orally in class, through paper and online samples, via image files, and sometimes by video.

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  6. If the little dipshits can't learn how to follow directions then maybe they shouldn't be allowed to pass the couses and matriculate. If they're willing to piss away an opportunity to learn something they should be doing it at a community college and not in the university. Drive the fucktards out.

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  7. Now I've read that hackjob; both the writer and the website owners should be waterboarded, then run over by a tank.

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  8. Bagging on Millenials specifically rankles me for two reasons: 1. I am a millenial 2. I teach students who range in age from 18 to 65, and shitty behavior is not confined to the younger set. I'd say the worst ones are the 35-40 year olds, in terms of not following directions and acting entitled.

    I haven't been teaching very long, and I wonder if it's not a case of "students today are worse" but that there's been a cultural shift, as happens from time to time. Right now, there just isn't a high value placed on education, and that's reflected in our classroom by students of all ages.

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  9. I'm a Gen Xer, and I find my generation deeply conservative and profoundly whiny. I think the boomers are even worse, both on the selfish conservatism and the whininess fronts. I like my current students, generally. On the whole, they're studious, committed, bright, funny, and idealistic. The last place I taught, though, was plagued by students who were entitled, apathetic, stupid, uninterested, and uninteresting. The place I teach now is public and has a high admissions cut-off, and most of the kids I teach are locals who can't afford to go away for university. The place I taught then was private, though mostly a commuter campus, and we handed out scholarships to kids who'd flunked out of other institutions. You do the math. The culture of an institution is a much more significant factor in predicting a blizzard than vague generational identity categories, I think.

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  10. BlackDog--

    I think you're on to something with the idea that the context in which we encounter students affects our perception of the degree of flakiness in the whole group. Those who do independent projects are, of course, a self-selected group, and almost always the most pleasant to work with (give or take a few who fail to accept responsibility for the results of their own poor time management, react poorly to direction and/or constructive criticism, etc.). Students probably seem the most flaky in large groups, both because we don't get to know them or notice their progress as individuals, and because such situations often require us to set up fairly precise procedures for accomplishing various tasks, to stave off chaos. The size of a class also increases the headache-inducing quotient when students don't follow said instructions, the predictable chaos ensues, and we're somehow supposed to restore order while also answering questions about things covered in the course handouts, magically producing grades within hours of completion of an assignment, etc., etc.

    Ophelia -- I, too, would say that 35-40-year-olds -- aging Gen X-ers, though I'm not sure that makes a difference -- can be among the worst as well as the best students. I think that group tends to include both people who are finally getting their act together after a rough start (often including, especially for women, having children while still in their teens, dropping out of or never beginning college, and/or moving a lot to accommodate a partner's career) and those who are still trying to get their acts together and/or are just plain overwhelmed by other responsibilities, and, much as they need to improve their incomes, might do better to wait until their kids are a bit older. The latter group probably overlaps considerably with the parents of our students who view (and encourage their children to view) a college education as a product one purchases, rather than an opportunity for which one pays but must make use of to benefit from (maybe a gym membership would be a good analogy? I'm not really a big fan of sports/fitness as the source of all universally comprehensible analogies, except that, more often than not, such analogies seem to work).

    I'd also say, from admittedly limited experience, that the online environment seems to attract students at the extremes: both the most mature and responsible students (who may be busy, but have excellent time management and direction-following skills, and accept full responsibility when their planning is upset by unexpected events) and the most flaky, who know they should be "getting a college education," but who don't understand that, when you sign up for an online course, more time doesn't magically appear in your already-too-full schedule, and that when the professor says in her introductory email that the ability to follow detailed written instructions is crucial to success in online courses, she means it -- that, of course, assumes they read the email.

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  11. Whoa, there Strelnikov. Students piss away chances to learn at all levels of education. Implying that students at a university should waste any money at ANY place of higher education if they are going to piss away their chance to learn just makes you seem mean. I agree, let the students fail. Then, maybe they will wake up and take responsibility for their own education. But sending lazy, ignorant students to CCs is just stupid. Tell them to get a job. Don't make my job a hassle just because you don't want to deal with lazy students. Why the fuck would I want to deal with them if you don't?

    Mathsquatch *teachin' at a CC* out.

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  12. By the way, anybody know how to get students to feel the warm and fuzzies about quadratic equations? I mean, I think that "the pythagorean theorem is sad," might make them laugh, but I don't think it will help them learn how to apply it. Talking about how students feel about the number 4 makes me think about Sesame Street. Also, what drama exists in an equation like x-7=-3? Oh no, the -3 wants to take seven away from x, what a douche! It's like a miniature number soap opera. You stand up for your 7, x! Don't let that -3 take it away from you! Tune in next time to see what happens when x realizes that she is the number 4! What will she think? Will she find the solutions to her conundrum of existence? Like sands through the hourglass, so are the Solutions To Our Equations.

    Mathsquatch *this comment brought to you by the feelings I attach to the number -47* Out.

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  13. @Cassandra: The online environment definitely brings in a more dramatic set of personalities. Just as said, I have students are totally on the ball, but for whatever reason can't attend a traditional school. And I have students who are in school not because they want to learn but because they need a better job.

    It seems that most online students are online because something went terribly wrong -- kids too young, a sick family member, a personal illness, etc. That often leads to either a sense of perseverance or a sense of entitlement.

    My father died when I was in high school, and my mom was very sick throughout most of my 20s until she, too, died. Had I dropped out of school to take care of her, I could easily see myself at an online school now, instead of teaching at one. My parents, though, instilled in me a love of and respect for learning. If other people don't get that, no matter their age, no wonder they act a fool in the classroom.


    It's funny, though, my online colleagues like to talk about those awful Millenials, when really, most of our students are Gen Xers. (The average online student is a 35 year old woman.)

    @MatchSquatch: I've always enjoyed the Quadratic Equation Song (set to Jingle Bells). Maybe there's a song for the Pythagorean Theorem? And instead of an exam, students can do something creative, like a Negative Numbers Interpretative Dance?

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  14. When I first started teaching a few years ago my students were often older than me, though some by only a few years. Now, after moving to a new university, my students tend to be younger on average or my age. Despite this, I haven't noticed any real difference in behaviour. I think the precious snowflakes come from all age categories...

    @MathSquatch LOL U R FUN... just kidding. I can just image the dramatic math poetry now...

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  15. @Mathsquatch: I think your field is a very good example of where patience and persistence and a generally long view of one's goals and what one needs to achieve them (not, admittedly, qualities that 18-year-olds have ever been famous for) come in. There are a few people who feel strongly about math for its own sake (and more power to them; I have a nephew who falls in that category, and his enthusiasm is fun to see, and, fortunately, fully supported by his parents). There are many more who need strong math skills to make a difference in the field about which they *do* feel passionate, be it business or medicine or the eradication of poverty. Mature students (of any age) will realize that, and won't expect you to make math exciting, just comprehensible (so long as they work at it). Immature students will complain that it's boring.

    I'm pretty sure that all of the above should go without saying (or, rather, should have been drummed into students' heads by their parents sometime before 3rd grade). But apparently in the new student-as-consumer culture, it needs to be said. Aaaaargh.

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  16. I do not know how to make students "feel" about math. My problem is something of the opposite--I teach social science and this somehow prompts students to talk about how they FEEL entirely too much and far less about what they THINK. WE try and talk about this distinction in class but it doesn't always sink in.

    *sigh* I recently learned that one of my (male) colleagues cried in front of his class whilst talking about the little children of Starvistan and apparently his Rate My Professor evals shot through the roof. I don't want to cry about the children of Starvistan, I'd rather think about them and about how they came to be where they are and where they might be going, but that's just me and I am a Big. Fat. Meanie.

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  17. I'm an aging Xer, so when I first started I taught the other end of the X. And then I taught the millenials. And I think the difference is this: Xers were/are slackers, no doubt. But they didn't keen at me for an A for doing nothing. They made apologetic but lame excuses for why they sucked, or they just straight-up sucked with no excuse, but they didn't expect As for merely showing up and breathing. In fact, for many of them, an A was uncool anyway. So was self-esteem, now that I think about it -- it was all angst and navel-gazing. Whereas millenials have this bizarre drive for outward perfection without, well, doing anything anywhere close to perfect, and seem to think very highly of themselves even when there is plenty of evidence that they are not so good.

    'Splain, please.

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  18. @ Mathsquatch
    There are no motherf@#king jobs for these little snowflakes to go to, unless you want them dealing crack in alleys at 2am. So it's either community college or playing Xbox all day (I'd rather have them in the Army, preferrably doing suicide missions.) It doesn't matter what I say anyway; the poorer Millenials are flooding the CCs in my state....hopefully these people can follow directions.

    Za Kommunizmu,

    Strelnikov

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  19. > Whereas millenials have this bizarre drive
    > for outward perfection without, well, doing
    > anything anywhere close to perfect, and seem
    > to think very highly of themselves even when
    > there is plenty of evidence that they are not
    > so good.

    I think it's quite obvious. You may thank the self-esteem movement for it. Gen Y has been told over, and over, and OVER again that they are special, every last man-jack and woman-jill among them. It seems odd to refer to them as "man-jack" and "woman-jill": they seem SO immature. Just look at the kids in the illustration to this web page: I hope they aren't college students, since they look so much younger.

    Clearly, Gen Y seems to have 7th-grade reading, writing, and math skills, at best. Wasn't someone wondering the other day about what goes on between grades 6 and 12? I'll tell you: they get told over, and over, and OVER again how special they are. They also try to make up for lost time during K-6, during which they were all singing songs, such as (to the tune of Frere Jacques):

    I am special!
    I am special!
    Can't you see?

    (etc.: I can't go on typing this, I feel the bile rising.)

    The child-rearing practices and societal attitudes that led to this have GOT to stop. The Romans went into decline because they went soft, didn't they? Edward Gibbon called it "lack of civic virtue": it sounds to me much like the total abdication of the concept of personal responsibility in American education and society today. Maybe the silver lining to the current economic slump will be to toughen up these hothouse flowers, which wilt as readily as snowflakes melt. At least Gen Xers had the very real fear of an imminent nuclear war. Oh wait a minute...

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  20. @Strelnikov: It's not that there are NO jobs, it's just that all the ones in existence seem to require some type of degree. The newspaper from the medium-large city two hours away is full of ads looking for workers, but none of the snowflakes qualify. Plus, as Frod says, they all think they are too special to work at the "menial" jobs of foodservice and even retail. Um...my brother works in a freezer moving pallets of food around all day and he is no idiot, nor is he a slouch. He works his butt off six days a week, sometimes, and he gets to go home to his girlfriend, his children and his stepson. Sure, it doesn't require a degree, and it's hard work, but he's willing to do it because it supports his family.

    I was not trying to say that you are mean, just that we need to knock some sense into the snowflakes. I can't say how to do this since, unfortunately, Mathsquatch is not allowed to rip students' arms off and beat students to death with them.


    By the way, I'm towards the older end of Gen Y and I don't recognize the snowflakes as being anywhere close to how I was raised. I guess being a dirt-poor country kid for 8 years was enough to show me how to work hard for what I want...

    Mathsquatch out.

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  21. > Mathsquatch said...
    >
    > By the way, anybody know how to get
    > students to feel the warm and fuzzies about
    > quadratic equations?

    Hmm, this is tough. One approach that can be quite effective is to say, "Learn this, or YOU WILL DIE." In the aftermath of Sputnik, many Americans were genuinely frightened, and they did learn quite a lot of mathematics. I'm not sure how you can apply this idea now: threaten them with a flamethrower? Sorry, scratch that idea...

    Another approach is to repeatedly tell them that it's cool. If you repeat anything often enough, people will start to think it's true. (I'm ashamed to admit that I know from whom that quotes: Joseph Goebbels. Hey, just because he was wicked doesn't mean he wasn't sometimes right: indeed, sometimes being right was what made him so dangerous.)

    Another approach is the Tom Sawyer approach: tell them it's an honor and a privilege to get to do this. This may work better on first-generation college students, if you got 'em. Honestly, with the way mathematics aptitude in Americans is turning out, we really are getting dangerously dependent on immigrants to run our technology. What if they stop wanting to immigrate?

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