In a culture where everyone wins a trophy, where A’s outnumber C’s on report cards and where a child’s self-esteem is as polished as the family silver, it’s not surprising that young people feel good about themselves.Do they feel too good?
Yes, says Arthur Levine, co-author of the new book, “Generation on a Tightrope: A Portrait of Today’s College Student,” a snapshot of the values, lives and aspirations of students enrolled in college between 2005 through current students.
“This is a generation of kids never permitted to skin their knees. If everyone won an award and you never really had to deal with adversity, why wouldn’t you think you were great?” asks Levine, president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and president emeritus of Teachers College, Columbia University.
That coddling, evidenced by parents still intervening for their kids with messy college roommates or demanding professors, is extending adolescence and delaying adulthood for the tightrope generation.
“As one person told us, 21 is the new 16,” says Levine. “This is a generation low in coping skills, low in dealing with adversity and low in autonomy.”
MORE.
An interesting comment at the end of the editorial:
ReplyDeleteAs a leader in higher education, Levine believes the college experience can help kids grow up, beginning with the academic equivalent of a kick to the shins.
“What would happen if we did away with grade inflation, if all of the students now getting A’s began getting B’s and C’s?” he says. “Would it work as a two-by-four in helping them understand where they really stand?”
Perhaps students would wake up and realize that just slipping by isn't good enough. Perhaps they would begin really working at understanding things. Perhaps they would discover that hard, smart work make the topic of study more interesting.
Naaah.
No, they get REVENGE!
DeleteAngry e-mails and phone calls to the instrutor, chair, dean, and president! Stalker-like behavior as they harass instructors in an effort for them to "understand" why they "need" a higher grade. Nasty lies on evaluations that just get inflamed by idiot admins who want to know WHY there are so many disgruntled students (because where there's smoke, there MUST be fire!).
Hell, even a commenter on the article noticed how this group loves to make empty claims of prejudice to bolster their lack of responsibility; they get low grade feedback because they are HATED (for their race, sex, sexual orientation, or because they have an ugly face), not because they did poor work.
The two-by-four is ABUSE! So stop hitting the snowflake and give them all As!
*tosses a confetti of As into the air*
OMG--you're right! I can't tell you how often I've been accused of racism in the last few years because remedial classes are more heavily filled with a certain ethnicity (all placed based on test scores).
DeleteWhat we've noticed is an increase of our Counseling Center's resources being used when a student earns a grade he or she deserves (i.e. a C or a D). They often can't seem to cope and end up depressed and even suicidal.
ReplyDeleteWhat I find funny is USNWR's list of "A+ schools for B students," or high quality schools that B students have a shot of getting admitted to. They then proceed to list the average HS GPAs for admitted students, and they're something in the range of 3.6 or 3.8. I guess 3.8 is the new B.
DeleteBut at 16 I was taking college classes and dealing with the grades I actually got. Seems to me like 21 is the new 11.
ReplyDeleteIf you want a 2 x 4, you don't need to get rid of grade inflation. Just go to Home Depot.
ReplyDeleteIsn't this kind of overgeneralization just a tad dangerous? My students, almost all working-class, ethnic minority, first-generation college students, have lots of problems, but an inflated sense of self-esteem isn't one of them. I've never once in 40 years had a student asking to be excused from the final so h/she could go along on the annual family vacation to St. Moritz or the Bahamas or wherever.
ReplyDeleteMany of my students are like that, too. It's the ones who aren't that draw the Misery.
DeleteI get quite a few students like uniongoon's, too. They can be a refreshing break from the childish neediness of the too-common "modern" students, who have a strong sense of entitlement, think of themselves as customers, and hail largely from the UMC. What can be heartbreaking about my working-class, first-generation students is their skill level and preparation for college. Even worse is when they learn dysfunctional behaviors from the entitled crowd. More than once, I've asked: Can you afford to take that attitude?
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ReplyDeleteSometimes I get irritated when I realize that many of my students have higher GPAs than I did, and most of these students have never finished a novel, visited the library, or bothered to look up a word they don't know. I benefited from grade inflation myself (as did everyone who was born after 1970), but many of my most scarily incompetent and/or anti-intellectual students have effortless 4.0s. I've even had more than a few people tell me that the A- they got in my class (which really should have been a B-) "ruined my 4.0."
ReplyDeleteI was born 'way before 1970, and when I was going to grad school, an A was a pretty average grade. B's meant something was wrong, and a C meant work was unacceptable. Le plus ca change.
ReplyDeleteAnd just to keep the pot well-stirred: I took another look at the article and Arthur Levine's comments. I was struck by the fact that he expected that 9/11 would be "defining moment" in the lives of the students (graduating class of 2012) he surveyed. But those kids would have been 10 years old in 2000.
If snowflakery, entitlement, and privilege all have to do with self-centeredness, then isn't Levine's assumption a sterling example of how snowflakes think? "X was the defining moment in my life, so it must
have been an important turning point in yours--even if you were still prepubescent"?
And please don't misunderstand me too quickly: I do not intend to downplay the deaths of nearly 3000 human beings, but 9/11 was not the defining moment in my life; it wasn't even a defining moment.
I was born 'way before 1970, and when I was going to grad school, an A was a pretty average grade. B's meant something was wrong, and a C meant work was unacceptable. Le plus ca change.
DeleteThere's an apocryphal story that a crusty old p-chem prof at some rather high-level university told his students in a required p-chem course, "It took B's to get you in here, so I suppose I'll have to give you B's to get you out of here."
The grad school scale isn't the same as it is for undergrads. I always thought of it as the same basic spectrum of quality spread over three letters as opposed to five, so dipping anywhere into B territory meant damning mediocrity that wouldn't fly with everyone (just as C territory should be for the undergrads).
DeleteMy students all skipped class after bin Laden got killed because they'd been out partying the night before. 9/11 became their generation's defining moment (and something they suddenly all personally remembered)--when it offered a reason to party.
DeleteAnd yes, these kids were 10 when 9/11 happened. But they were teething when the internet was made popular.
Maureen Downey sounds like that creep Charles Murray. These people are legion, coming from rags like Atlantic and Reason.
ReplyDeleteMaureen Downey sounds like that creep Charles Murray. These people are legion, coming from rags like Atlantic and Reason.
ReplyDelete