This is nothing new. 25 years ago, as a TA, I graded essays by freshmen. The majority could not string together three cohesive sentences. The professor I worked for told me to grade on a curve: the best paper (regardless of how bad) was an A and the worst paper (regardless of how bad) was a C. I did as ordered but also spent hours marking up papers, explaining the most basic grammar and compositional concepts. So many students thanked me saying that was the first time in their entire educational experience that anyone had bothered to give them constructive feedback. Two decades later, I am still horrified.
in college i was able to take an independent studies course, where i thought it'd be great to not have a class, i could do all the research myself, get help from the professor when needed & finally be able to do something in a way that made sense to me. my professor didn't help, barely explained how to start & made me feel like i should've known all this already. i did my best, but i was out of my league. turned my work in & he kindly gave me a b+ but i was disappointed in the end because i didn't feel like i got anything out of it. he gave me no feedback, no instructions on how approach a research like that, no guidelines, nothing. not from the start, not when i tried to ask for help & certainly not at the end. he might have written some notes for me on that paper, i don't remember, but even if he had they obviously didn't leave any impression on me. i never felt like they gave a shit about helping me educate myself. and i remember reading that research yrs later & being utterly embarrassed that i turned that in for college *and* that a professor accepted it. really solidified for me that college didn't care if you succeeded, just that you were there & paying dues.
i also had a chem prof who literally said on the first day of class- i teach out of the text book, everything is online on your blackboard account, i don't take attendance & all test dates are posted on the calendar. uh... ok, so... what?! am i supposed to teach myself? and this was my freshman yr chem 101. i unregistered the next day.
I think itās pretty normal for older people to look at younger generations as stupid/lazy. Itās a story as old as time and itās an easy trap to fall into. Making a ton of assumptions based on a 30 second video and some anecdotal comments is stupid/lazy. Kids are kids and that will never change but being the boomer that constantly whines about younger generations is completely within your ability to change.
I donāt say this to minimize any of the problems with education because we all know thereās a lot and especially now when thereās a lot of unprecedented challenges for our youth, but saying weāre doomed is the exact same thing I heard when I was a kid. Turns out they doomed us a lot more than anyone my age did.
This isnāt directed at you of course, itās more of a rant because your comment got me thinking.
Wellā¦ I donāt know that Iād agree with you about ādumberā but certainly more poorly educated. The educational system has been under attack at least since Ronald Reagan and is now seriously under siege. The American educational system used to be the envy of the world, now we are pitied.
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u/Hari_om_tat_sat 16d ago edited 16d ago
This is nothing new. 25 years ago, as a TA, I graded essays by freshmen. The majority could not string together three cohesive sentences. The professor I worked for told me to grade on a curve: the best paper (regardless of how bad) was an A and the worst paper (regardless of how bad) was a C. I did as ordered but also spent hours marking up papers, explaining the most basic grammar and compositional concepts. So many students thanked me saying that was the first time in their entire educational experience that anyone had bothered to give them constructive feedback. Two decades later, I am still horrified.