Mark Bauerlein’s new book The Dumbest Generation (Or Don’t Trust Anyone Under 30) is a cry from previous generations asking: why are our children today so dumb? News sources like CBS News report children’s recall of historical facts and figures at an all time low. Various studies show that this generation does not know the dates of the Civil War or who their congressman is, but really, aren’t they missing the point?
All these complaints about children not learning as much as their parents did is neglecting to mention one thing that gives today’s children an edge, the internet. As a student myself, I have seen the shift from the names and dates I was instructed to memorize in fifth grade to the concepts I was expected to understand in high school. The invention of the internet has made kids smarter and they have become well-rounded. No longer do our children need to memorize a list of dates to be considered smart. Today, children need to be able to explain the process of cellular mitosis, find the integral, and speak another language. When you put these added burdens on children you have to expect something else to give way, and since names and dates can be looked up an a computer or cell phone in under three minutes, why not let those be the first to go?
What about the younger generation? Computers did not become widely used in the classroom until I was about eleven, but today’s children have had computers and cell phones since birth, so what are they learning? Well, some would have you think that the prevalence of the internet is making them even dumber, but it is obvious these people have not been in a public school classroom in years. As part of a program I take part in, I have been interning in a fifth grade classroom since fall 2007. These kids have had cell phones since kindergarten, and were taught to use Microsoft Office and how to type in first grade (if not earlier). Now in fifth grade, they know algebra equations and methods I was not taught until eighth grade and that my mother was not taught until high school. They can explain to you the theory behind, as well as, the pros and cons of biopower. Gone are the days of memorizing times table and learning scientific notation in fifth grade, if you don’t learn them by third grade, you are behind. These children are not in a rich private school either; they are at a public elementary school in the heart West Palm Beach.
So the dumbest generation? I think not Mr. Bauerlein. We may be different from the generations that came before us, but we have been groomed for different occupations then our parents. We grew up in a generation where our computers become antiques in less than a year, so we have to know how to pounce on, dissect, and evaluate new software and hardware, as well as, know all the concepts and theories that previous generations did not learn until college before our high school graduation. Go sit in an AP English Lit class Mr. Bauerlein, and any other naysayer, and tell me if you can keep up.
How do you feel about this issue? Sound off!
* Correction: Since the original posting it has come to my attention that I was mistaken. The true author of this book is Mark Bauerlein, a professor at Emory University. The article has been edited accordingly.
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I agree with you completely. I’m a senior in high school and when ever I go home and talk to my parents about my day at school I get the strangest looks simply because my high school education is so different from their own. So I understand where you’re coming from and like you said, lets see Mr.Graham try a week of high school classes before he decides which generation is stupid.
Comment by Hwk — February 28, 2008 @ 10:35 am
Amanda, while I agree with your sentiment in general. I would warn you that you may be applying your own intelligence to your age mates!
I think people need to be more cautious when speaking about entire generations. They called my generation “slackers” and the electronic revolution we manufactured changed the world in less than a dozen years.
I think that while I doubt everyone in your generation is as brilliant and articulate as yourself, you are poised to make your own revolution, for many of the same reasons you just stated.
Comment by James — February 28, 2008 @ 11:04 am
Maybe they are not so dumb as naive. True, they are tech-savvy, but having access to all of the knowledge is not the same as having the knowledge. From my experience, their obsession with technology, especially cell phones, causes them to lose contact with, and not care about, the practical side of life. This affects their ability to function well as adults.
Comment by Greyizhip — February 28, 2008 @ 11:46 am
While I wouldn’t say that Mr. Graham’s implied inability to “keep up” in an AP English class has any bearing on his ability to accurately analyze the efficiency of this generation’s fact retention, I do agree that the storage media for facts are changing from intracranial to international. And it’s not only the internet; anyone with a portable 1gb hard drive can now carry around all the data on Wikipedia! I’d say that forecasts exciting changes for our children, and that’s where I agree with you most: the potential for using our brainpower for creative or analytical thinking, instead of rote memorization, opens up a limitless range of opportunities for the less educated, not to mention those who lack, say, mathematical talent, yet are quite adept in the arts. As you can probably tell, I wish those advances had taken place when I was in high school.
Comment by Literacity — February 28, 2008 @ 1:32 pm
You say kids are smarter because they “need to be able to explain the process of cellular mitosis, find the integral, and speak another language.”
I bet I could randomly pick 100 kids off the street that would not know what they heck you were even talking about, let alone actually have that knowledge in their head.
Kids today are dumber because everything is done for them. Parents give in to children’s whims so kids don’t have to do anything/think for themselves.
You may reassess your opinion when we have these image conscious, self absorbed teens in parliament running the country.
Comment by Oakman — February 28, 2008 @ 2:46 pm
I agree with your general premise, but to a lesser extent. While it’s true that the internet is a powerful tool for research, it has no power to teach how to construct a sentence, or how to frame historical events in the mind’s eye, or understand complex maths. Naturally, the advent of the internet should have freed up class time previously spent memorizing minutiae, but my own experience is that the actual result is somewhat the opposite.
I have a young cousin of eleven years of age. He’s a smart boy, and creative, but I’ve had to watch in horror recently as his education squashes both of those attributes from him. His teachers are so apathetic and incompetent that anything he learns is in fact garnered from outside his school. Of course, our current administration’s simplistic, monkey-see monkey-do attitude towards education has much to do with it, but it cannot explain away the egregious assaults on the mind that school children experience on a daily basis.
For example, my cousin’s class was doing an Asian history unit a few weeks ago, and the principle activity therein was watching a movie. Not a documentary, but Mulan, that ridiculous spurt of Disney pap. They would have learned more about ancient China from eating the Chinese chicken salad at the local deli.
Of course, though their education is so sorely lacking, children always seem to find a way to learn and to grow. The maddening levels of hypocrisy in an aging conservative twat like Graham suggesting that our CHILDREN are at fault for not knowing the same trivia that he was expected to memorize makes me want to vomit.
I would posit that it is not the current crop of children that is dumb, but Mr. Graham’s own generation. They are so fat and apathetic, so arrogant in their inability to train teachers, and to pay them enough to make them care, that our children are suffering, forced to learn for themselves. While I do believe that society will recover from the disasters wrought by the wrinkled, greedy old men, it is sad they are so infuriatingly oblivious as to heap the blame on the victims, rather than accepting it themselves.
Anyway, I disagree with Graham, and think that he is a complete ass. Then again, I think that people who believe a hullabaloo can neglect anything while simultaneously suggesting their opponent retake an English class may lend credence to his argument.
Comment by dancinbojangles — February 28, 2008 @ 3:57 pm
James - You do make a good point. While I know my entire generation is not on the same level, we have made some improvements on the scope of knowledge we intake during our high school years.
Oakman - I could pick 100 kids as well, just as I could find a hundred of any other generation who don’t know what you may know. The point I’m trying to make is that we are making a change from our parents’ generation
Comment by Amanda Roberts — February 28, 2008 @ 4:09 pm
It’s the same as always. Stupid kids will spend their time in useless pursuits, and smart kids will learn, and keep learning, and be successful. Since we now have the internet, the stupid kids who once hung out in cars, getting stoned, or at the malt shop, now linger on facebook or gamer sites, or learning, if at all, from dubiously fact-checked websites. There, they will acquire a wide range of knowledge about nothing.
The smart kids will be building websites and making money off the stupid ones.
But it’s OK. Like my dad said, “The world needs ditch-diggers, too!”
Comment by BC — February 28, 2008 @ 4:54 pm
Who said this was the “dumbest Generation”? By nature as humans I’d like to think we could all agree collective knowledge would increase as time passes from generation to generation.
If this is the dumbest Generation, then YOUR generation failed to educate us properly. We didn’t teach ourselves, we had to learn our greed, insecurity and closed-mindedness from someone, right?
If we are the dumbest Generation, then the older generations can thank themselves for the values they’ve passed on to us. Maybe you shouldn’t have based everything you taught us on commercialism, money, and immediate self-gratification.
Thanks again for all of that. Now you have us to deal with, enjoy it. You have no choice but to accept what you’ve created.
This isn’t the dumbest Generation. We just don’t give a f***.
Comment by Andrew — February 28, 2008 @ 5:46 pm
I am a junior in High School and could not agree more. I “doubled-up” on science this year - taking AP Chemistry (”Advanced Placement,” for those out of the loop - it’s a college-level class and can earn me college credit) and Honors Physics, next year taking AP Biology, AP Physics, AP Calculus, AP English Literature, and most likely AP French. And I’m in High School. I can explain mitosis, find an integral, and also explain things like how centrifugal force affects a gyroscope or how partial charges are distributed in a polyatomic ion- and why. Although I cannot tell you the exact date of, say, the signing of Pinckey’s Treaty in the 1790s. I can, however, explain how it affected race relations in the Old Southwest by providing a new shipping lane and market to pro-slavery back-country settlers. I’ll let you decide which is more important. It is true: we are not learning as many “facts” as generations prior. Then again, I believe it is a wise man who said that education is not the filling of a vessel, but rather the lighting of a flame. But who am I to talk? I’m just some nitwit High School kid who can’t remember anything.
Comment by Brooks Kinch — February 28, 2008 @ 8:16 pm
Re: BC’s comment on the dumb kids hanging out on facebook or garnering sites: facebook is actually a great professional networking tool. I use it to post medical news and information among other things, which leads me to the next point: the internet contains a vast amount of truly useful information, much of it posted by academic institutions, who, if you remember, were among the first to use it extensively. I have used StumbleUpon to collect many high-quality science sites; my study of neuroanatomy would have been much weaker without it.
The smart kids will be making money off the stupid ones? Most of the smart kids I know have more to focus on than how to exploit others.
Comment by Amy — February 28, 2008 @ 8:37 pm
As a 19 year old currently majoring in aerospace engineering, having earned a 1530 on the old SAT, 2260 on the new, I am evidence against the idea that my generation is dumber. As in the article, we now focus less on rote, and more on concepts. That said, high school barely gets you ready for college, and is really just what you make of it
Comment by Roger — February 28, 2008 @ 9:04 pm
Hmm. No, I think Graham is correct. The internet has been a wonderful thing in many ways, but it also means that the young generation does not find it useful to remember facts. It means they aren’t (generally speaking) able to think on their feet as well as previous generations. I see this in my freshmen political science students. Keep in mind that I’m only 31. They rely far too much on the internet for facts, and don’t take the time to really learn and memorize material (because they know facts are only a few seconds away on Google). Not to mention that relying on the internet for facts is a bit questionable. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen students regurgitate facts from Wikipedia that are completely wrong.
Knowing a large number of facts doesn’t make one smart, but you’ll find that most people who are smart do in fact have a vast amount of data in their minds. I see that happening less and less. There is little information retention, and the kind of academic work that is necessary in college (and more so in grad school) requires data retention. The internet is simply not enough. The idea that one could be good at history without knowing dates? Ridiculous.
The internet is a tool. Many young students, though, are using it to replace memorization. The internet allows them to be intellectually lazy, especially when they aren’t knowledgeable enough to distinguish good information from bad. Perhaps time will sort this out, but for now I think most students would be smarter if they limited their use of the internet for raw fact finding, and took the time to actually get to know their subjects.
Comment by ern — February 28, 2008 @ 9:10 pm
As a 12 year old 7th grader, I wholeheartedly agree!
Comment by Jesus — February 28, 2008 @ 9:10 pm
I agree with you entirely. And ern, the internet does not replace memorization. You cannot use the internet on any tests, therefore still requiring the memorization. And as for the fact that they can’t distinguish good information from bad, that is being taught to younger students so the internet can be helpful.
Comment by Anonymous — February 28, 2008 @ 9:58 pm
Honestly, is anything we’re supposed to learn factually in high school going to be relevant to our college education and our life thereafter? No, the internet cannot be used on tests, but is there ever really a situation in real life when you can’t look something up on a reputable online source? The goal of education to help people learn to think and connect and communicate effectively. Yes, a general background knowledge is essential to this goal. However, other skills accrued in high school are much more important in the long run- the ability to write clearly and effectively, the ability to think critically about problems, the ability to recognize weaknesses and fallacies in what we do today, and solve them creatively for an improved tomorrow. Rote memorization doesn’t do that. The only way to really improve these skills is to get kids interested in school and their courses. NCLB and state testing really are ineffective at measuring the important skills supposed to be attained in school, and their rigid curricular standards are more detrimental to students than helpful. Learning what to think is boring. Learning how to think is enlightening.
Not every life and career choice requires you to learn a lot of facts. What do a lot of kids do after school- go to the local community or state college, major in business, get an associate or bachelor degree and go work in an office. Knowing the dates of the Spanish American war- not so important. Obviously, those in a more academic setting need to know more. Engineers can’t spend all day looking up formulas or constants. In general, for most professions, these facts are important because they are used. Know any English teachers who remember their geometry really well and can do proofs off the top of their heads? I don’t. I know English teachers who can remember a lot of random knowledge about Shakespeare and grammar. They like these things, so they studied them in college and now they have been talking about them for forty years. High school students don’t necessarily like these things, they’ve only studied anything in depth for a maximum of 3-4 years, and they’ve never had to really regurgitate them except on a test or two. It’s a big difference.
Comment by Megan — February 28, 2008 @ 10:51 pm
The wretched past is, after all, such a marvelous standard to live up to. If a student looks at a history book and sees it as the log of Apes with Pretenses that it is, then I guess the future will obviously seem more interesting. Discoveries are the highlights of history but the political portion of it is a garish nightmare.
Comment by Chrona — February 28, 2008 @ 11:25 pm
If you fail to learn the history of your nation you will always be trapped in the present without understanding the greatness and character of those who built that which you now enjoy.
The life you live is do directly to the accomplishments and sacrifices of those who came before you.
The importance of learning historical dates is to develop in you a knowledge of the steps leading up to where you now stand as those who come after you should learn the single step that your life represents.
I find you argument to be an endorsement of laziness which has been attempted by many generations of students who don’t want to put forth the effort to achieve academic excellence.
Comment by zevgoldman — February 28, 2008 @ 11:26 pm
pure laziness
We live in a world that is competitive. The U.S.A. is in big trouble if it is turning out kids who only know how to process information, but do not have any of their own. We live in a time period where information is like currency. Maybe the kids in U.S.A. are like rich women who can spend money but do not earn it.
Comment by sg — February 29, 2008 @ 12:11 am
I teach college English–usually the composition class devoted to the research paper.
I find that the most valuable thing I can teach is how to find information; I spend the first half of every semester teaching remedial Looking Things Up.
It’s never safe for me to assume that first-year college students come prepared with the skills necessary to use good keywords on Google, much less undertake a sophisticated search of the library’s considerable resources.
I can’t say they’re dumber. They’re only 15 years younger than I am, anyway. But I can say that in an appreciable percentage of cases, they do not come prepared for college work.
Comment by SLH — February 29, 2008 @ 1:17 am
What an incredible amount of rationalized bull. The internet is a construct that doesn’t give those without any credible sense of intellect an excuse for being intellectually bankrupt. Nice try but I agree with the author about this being the World’s Dumbest Generation –this is the dumbest and most apologized for generation–”Oh, we just have to make you feel good as learners– despite these kids having few skills beyond finding plagiarized answers to their assignments in other peoples’ works (on the internet).
Shame on the apologist teachers and irrresponsible parents.
Darwin will win here. This generation will decay into a blob of protoplasm without brain cells.And good news, it will not survive.
Comment by nick mathe — February 29, 2008 @ 1:20 am
I can’t speak for the older generation, but I went to a dozen different schools in two countries and at all of them, a good two thirds of the schools’ populations COULD NOT READ.
There is nothing more psychically painful to listen to than a tenth grade student reading aloud and struggling with even simple vocabulary. These are students who should not have been promoted past second grade, as they have not yet grasped the concepts laid out for eight-year-olds.
Social promotion is one of the worst policies that schools have adopted. School is not supposed to be a feel-good factory; school is for learning.
Comment by Lindsey — February 29, 2008 @ 6:55 am
come on …
each generation complains about the younger ones.
Each Generation is different but sure as hell not dumber than the last one.(Your children wouldn´t vote bush, would they?)
Comment by AnJo — February 29, 2008 @ 10:42 am
Every generation of humans (at least in modern western thinking)believes it is mentally superior to its predecessors and morally superior to its children. Don’t sweat it, its just a part of the animal.
Comment by Uust — February 29, 2008 @ 4:10 pm
What’s dumber is that there are people in this world who don’t have any education whatsoever and we’re here complaining about others’ lack of intellect instead of trying to resolve our issue.
Comment by Hello Kitty — March 1, 2008 @ 3:08 am
To classify an entire generation as anything is as destructive as categorizing people by their color or sex. I agree with one of the above writers in that that kids today are being educated and reared poorly, which is not their fault. “Age Appropriate” systems allow no one to fail–hardly realistic and certainly not motivational. Excuses for behavioural problems, lack of discipline, the law, single parents (or lazy parents) and simply the fact that (to quote Bruce Cockburn) “the trouble with normal is it always gets worse” are all contributors to the woes of society.
In response to those who claim that “all” generations have felt that the younger of society are dumber, you are mistaken. The goal of most parents in the past has been to make their kids better than themselves. Unfortunately with this generation of parents, the goal is simply to give their offspring everything within their means, simply to shut them up. “Work for money? You want me to shovel snow and earn my money? No way, I’ll just whine until my folks give me what I want!” The parents generally do…
The trouble lies not only with teachers and parents but with the next generation themselves. Attitude has become more important than intelligence. Cool is better than polite. Mean is better than “soft”. Their value system has deteriorated to the point beyond repair.
I certainly feel that the coming generations have become lazier and far less disciplined than kids in prior years. To completely blame them however, is ridiculous. I must say that the more of today’s kids I see–the more relieved I become that, one day, I’m going to die.
Comment by Crazy Canuck — March 1, 2008 @ 2:12 pm
Although I agree with the premise, my thought always goes back to this…no electricity and sun flares. Both wreck havoc on the electronic gadgets and both are usually out of our ability to fix.
Also, being able to access this information through computers and cells at a moment’s notice does not enable us to store long term memories.
When the ‘puter crashes or the cell doesn’t work due to a sun flare, I think it is important for me to be able to rely on what I was taught in school…reading a book and writing by hand.
Comment by TONI STEELE — March 1, 2008 @ 8:01 pm
I am a sixteen-year-old kid and, as such, one of the members of what Graham so *affectionately* (I hate using asterisks in place of italics, but I didn’t exactly have a choice) refers to as ‘The Dumbest Generation.’ I am neither naive nor ignorant, and I certainly am not stupid. I attend a high school which takes only the top five students from each school district, and I think in a way that nobody I’ve ever heard of has thought. I remember everything I read and everything I hear. If I have read a book I can recite it verbatim, if I have seen a number I can manipulate it in any way in my mind and keep track of it at the same time. I have no memory for images, nor can I think with them. I think and dream in words I’ve read, words I’ve heard, words my mind feels fit to tell me. I dream in narration and in prose and story, I think in description and in verbs. Every generation has its Ender and Peter and Valentine Wiggins (I have just finished Ender’s Game, and I realized about halfway through that Orson Scott Card’s Ender had stopped being a character several pages previous; I had become him, which is to say he had become me. He thought, word-for-word, thoughts which I had thought earlier today before I started the book, and I felt the emotions he would not show) along with its intellectual backwash, and ours isn’t any difference. The simple fact that an emphasis in teaching has shifted from rote memorization (something which, if you investigated the works of Harry Lorrayne, you’d find is not at all a bad thing) to processes and explanations does not imply anything at all about the wit of my generation, merely about the mechanics of our wit. As a collective we are average, but as individuals we are as smart and as dumb, as wise and as rebellious, as witty and as rancorous as any generation which has come before it. We merely have a different way of showing it, which very few members of older generations seem to understand. The world is in a desperate state as always, a state which not even Douglas Adams’ sharpness can break through for long. Your move, Graham, say what you will.
Comment by Aaron — March 1, 2008 @ 8:22 pm
The problem is not generational it is societal. We have smart people calling the shots, but there are fewer of them. The masses are more easily swayed. Corporate messaging spreads the word and people listen. No matter what side of an argument you espouse, you must see all sides and not live with blinders on.
Comment by gus — March 1, 2008 @ 8:39 pm
Gus, I don’t think we are living with blinders on. You said that there are fewer smart people now then before, but what I don’t think you realize is that the smart people are still there, they are just hidden in a way that they weren’t hidden in previous generations. The leaders in innovation are sitting in front of their computers; teens are running multi-million dollar companies from their desk chairs. So you see Gus, the leaders are there, just not where you can see them.
Comment by Amanda Roberts — March 1, 2008 @ 9:12 pm
We can refute Graham’s claims all we want but I doubt he’ll listen to them because his definition of intelligence is so skewed, so let us try accepting his premises as true and draw a new conclusion.
Say we *are* the dumbest generation. That implies that their generation was smarter than we are and the generation before that. Well, the knowledge he speaks of is not manifested by deep thinking or personal reflection; it is taught! If the generation before us is not the dumbest generation then they had better teachers than the ones we have. This way of thinking draws simply one conclusion: the generation before us are the worst teachers. From this we can also propose that perhaps *they* are the dumbest generation, incapable of passing along their knowledge to future generations.
A wonderful parry followed by a coup de grace riposte! I believe his book is dead…
Comment by Alex — March 2, 2008 @ 12:19 am
Wow, what a thread…I notice that that has not been much analytical reasoning to justify the responses supporting that kids today are more stupid than previous generations.
The individuals claiming that their generation, and by extension themselves, are smarter than the preceding generations, have failed to hold themselves to the same standard of comparison to other previous generations.
Today, in the western world, it would be a safe assumption to claim that more than half of the population is engaged in some level of white-collar work. At the turn of about the tenth century, individuals in white-collar jobs such as trade, nobility, and the wealthy spoke multiple languages, had significant understanding of the sciences of the day, and could sing, dance, draw, and paint all with equal skill. In fact, if anyone would examine the white-collar educational practices of that era, it was expected that ALL information, including books, be memorized. I would challenge the majority of the individuals today to claim the same intellectual veracity of that time.
Now, let’s fast forward to the 19th century. When I was a child, back in the 70’s, one of my teachers brought in a standardized test from the late 19th century. I remember looking at the test and trying to answer questions about crop yield and animal husbandry. There were also questions about weights and measurements that society has used since at least 1930. Both my Uncle (an industrial engineer) and my Grandfather (an amateur scientist and railroad engineer) could not answer the questions. However, they could both spout dates and facts until they were blue in the face. They were both bright individuals and considered by their peers to be very intelligent. However, they could only speak a spattering of Latin, knew nothing of the sciences except where it influenced their work, and only my Grandfather could do any type of artistic work. Compared to the scientists, business people, and nobles of the middle ages, my relatives would have been considered stupid. However, to their peers, they were brilliant and talented.
I was not introduced to computers until I was well into college. In other words, I am a digital immigrant. I can spout significant dates in US history, but I can also apply theory. I may not be able to spout all of the facts and figures that my Grandfather and Uncle could, but with the use of a PC, I have the data readily available. Furthermore, I do more analytical work of a higher caliber in one week than they could do in half a year. This is not because I am better or more intelligent than they are, but because the demands of my society today require it.
I would argue that the Boomer generation is applying their own standards of what they think education is or should be without understanding that the demands of business and of society have changed. They appear to forget that, to their generational predecessors, they would also be considered ignorant and “stupid”. I accept that there are stupid people everywhere. I agree with one of the posts on this site that implied that all you have to do is walk out the door to find many idiots. However, there are also many smart, young people today. I would venture to say that there are more smart young people around today than most think there are.
Let’s not forget that the role of education is to prepare young people to be productive members of the future society that they will belong to. It is not the role of education to prepare people to live in the past. If young people are to succeed, they must be technologically savvy. In my business, I require people to adjust as information becomes available. Any newcomer into my industry must be able to process vast amounts of information in a matter of hours, not days or months. This is doubly hard when the information can change without notice. As a result, I would not be able hire people like my Grandfather or Uncle because they would not be able to adjust to the changes in and volumes of information that we process.
My response implies that people older than the kids today will become obsolete, and that is true. It is not our world, but theirs. Our time is passing and the best thing that we can do for our children is to teach them to understand our past yet embrace the future.
I would encourage people not to look at the younger generations and compare them to ourselves, but to look at them and praise and encourage them because they go where we cannot, the future.
Comment by Scott — March 2, 2008 @ 12:41 am
There is a disconnect between literal knowledge such as facts, history, etc and abstract, complex theory ranging from differential calculus to decision theory. While you maybe able to use the internet to look up a quick fact or history on a topic, you can’t be so quick to understand complex theories or abstract ideas. One example is in statistical courses. Students believe Excel and the internet will save them. While they can run a statistical test in Excel, they do not understand what it is derived from and how violations of assumptions can make the result uninterpretable. This leads to Type I and Type II errors.
Another significant issue is the accuracy of the information they find online. Without any baseline knowledge of a topic, how would they have any clue of what they are reading is accurate? Many times, online sources are riddled with errors or are so biased they cannot provide an objective point of view. In most instances, the information lack peer review. Before someone brings up the “peer review” from Wikipedia, pleaes keep in mind I am talking about expert peer review. Having 200 people “review” an article on Wikipedia does not ensure the accuracy of the article if the majority of those reviewers lack anything more than cursory knowledge of a topic. I am not saying Wikipedia is not valuable…far from it actually. I am saying though that information found online should be verified via a secondary resource.
I am not going to comment on whether the current generation of students is smarter or dumber than past generations because that is too subjective on what is valued as intelligence. I will say though that many members of the current generation don’t put forth much effort because they seem to think it should be provided for them. I expect this behavior from my Jack Russell Terrier, not an adult human.
Comment by Joe — March 2, 2008 @ 1:23 am
I disagree.
What we are seeing in recent generations is a discrepancy.
We’re getting a few smarter children, and a lot more stupid ones.
The real trouble today is how we are raising our kids. We are handing things to them on a silver platter, when we should leave the platter atop the refrigerator for them to get themselves. There are of course, other problems pertaining to this too, but I think that this is one of the largest ones.
Comment by Evilagram — March 2, 2008 @ 2:17 am
I think it is remarkably ignorant to make blanket statements about a group of people. It’d be like me saying “all old people pee their pants.” Some do I’m sure, but not all. Statements like “this is what is wrong with x” and “why is y so stupid?” Serve only to underscore the real issue: that some people do not take care of themselves and their families first. Tell you what Mr Graham: if you can first solve every problem in your and your family’s life, then you can tell me how stupid I am and hey, I might even listen. Until then, mind your own business.
Comment by Travis — March 2, 2008 @ 5:08 am
All one has to be is an editor to see that literacy has gone the way of the dinosaur on the Internet, particularly among young users, “this generation.” Without consistent spelling, grammar, word usage and other areas of language, the greatest communication invention ever is becoming a mass of often meaningless writing that will one day become overall unintelligible because everyone will write as s/he pleases, which the next person cannot hope to understand. Those who rely on: “Typos!” are in denial.
Comment by brio — March 2, 2008 @ 5:38 am
Speaking as both a teacher and one of the dreaded “over 30″ crowd, I will offer that this generation has been damaged by the previous two. I see this generation of parents as the worst that there has ever been, but even that is misleading.
In the past fifty years the government has stepped further and further into the education system. If you went back and looked at how things used to be done, education was a local community issue. Schools used to be part of a community’s center, and everyone had a voice. That voice has been almost completely stripped away by a government that has regulated the schools to death. Gone are the days when students were drilled with fundamentals and taught toward becoming a person rather than a test-taking machine.
Big government + parents shoved aside = a big mess.
Yes, this is the dumbest generation, but it isn’t the fault of the kids- they’re the victims.
Comment by Jeff Ingraham — March 2, 2008 @ 9:17 am
I’ve heard it said that a person isnt born stupid. It takes an education to do that.
Comment by Travis — March 2, 2008 @ 4:25 pm
[...] post written by Ms. Roberts called “The Dumbest Generation“. The title itself is so controversial that it started getting attention when she submitted [...]
Pingback by Title - important or not? — March 13, 2008 @ 8:18 am
Amanda Roberts, I believe your opinion is a bit dangerous. When you say why not let dates go, just look it up, next you’ll be saying let math go, we’ll use a calculator or let english go, we’ll search the internet, let science go, we’ll search the internet again, or maybe why not everything except basic computer surfing go since we can just look it up on our computer.
Comment by Anonymous — May 9, 2008 @ 8:29 pm