Peggy's Summary Post

My assignment was to reflect on a key concept shared in the book The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future* *Or, Don’t Trust Anyone Under 30. The concept I chose to focus on is that today’s digital education is failing students. Bauerlein states over and over in the book the disdain students’ hold for learning traditions or history. “If the guardians of tradition claim that the young, though ignorant, have a special perspective on the past, or if teachers prize the impulses of tenth-graders more than the thoughts of the wise and the works of the masters, learning loses its point. (Page 186)
When I first started to read this book, like most everyone else in our blog, I was depressed and that has not changed with the conclusion of the book. Bauerlein has made it clear that the younger generation, “may even be recalled as the generation that lost that great American heritage, forever.” (Page 236). While watching the nightly news I hear how American students are falling behind in reading, math, and science. I wonder what is it going to take to make administrators, teachers, and parents understand that we have to hold students accountable to the effort they put into their education?
How can American students be falling behind with as much information digital or otherwise at their fingertips then any other country in the world? Is Bauerlein correct; are we teaching our students to only think and care about their own little social worlds? Are computers really stupefying American students? I can’t really answer these questions. As an educator who has read this book these are the questions that come to my mind.
Bauerlein makes it clear that today schools are not helping today’s students. I have heard from administrators that we need to make learning “fun”. If we do this then students will want to learn…. Clearly that is not the case. I tell my students that learning can be fun but not always. That we also learn from our mistakes and it is ok to make mistakes but you have to figure out what you did wrong. Students don’t like to hear this. They want everything to be easy. Why do I have to work so hard on and on… For some reason students feel they should not have to think or work so hard. They should get things right the first time. I am not sure where this philosophy came from but it is rampant among students. I now tell students you will get out of your learning what you put into it. If you work hard and try you will do well. If you don’t you will not do well. Simple common sense seems to have left education.