Kind regards,

Ruth

You people really are on the decline, aren’t you?

Thank you for your response. Notice that my comment does not mention technology at all; a different way of “learning” could involve Aristotle’s treatment of common opinion in his works versus the Presocratic style of writing that was more poetic.

You don’t need to attack the notion of progress via the smart/dumb dichotomy. A better attack is to ask Mr. Jarvis and those who are so “bully” on the future what it is they want. You can argue successfully that values have degraded, inasmuch as we can watch beheadings on YouTube and turn to The Daily Show to make fun of anyone with authority to their face, and there’s really no counter to that argument. Anyone who wants to counter it has to pretty much admit they have no sense of value and only a sense of progress, a hope that the future will be “better,” and that opens up the possibility of democracy without restraint. In other words, if you want to argue against progress, charge it with being anarchistic, and don’t relent. The libertarianism of the progress advocates has much to answer for already, and will be even more dangerous in the future, as it can’t defend itself – it assumes that the traditional which guards it, and that it can fall back on when intellectually empty, will always be there, even as it attacks it.

Having a cell phone does not change the way people learn. Did the advent of radio change the basic brain structure of people? How about the telephone?

I agree that technology can change the way that people can access materials to be learned. But it does not change the way people learn. The utter failure of educational technology shows that, at least the ed tech designed to somehow soup up the cognitive processes of humans.

I am amazed at the possibilities that technology brings to schools and universities in terms of the vastness of information available…having the libraries of the world at your fingertips. But having that information availanble does not somehow change the cognitive pathways of human beings.

I don’t know that the claim is that they’re the “smartest,” the claim is that they’re smart. Part of this claim is that they “learn differently,” and they want things worth their time.

I don’t think Mr. Jarvis has said anything controversial here. He’s asking that respect be shown to those who are younger, and to that end, one really has to look at the assumptions the anonymous commentator quoted has put forth, and see that they start with a fundamental disrespect for the students involved. OK, your experience has shown you that some students can’t do very basic things asked of them, or demonstrate elementary knowledge. Fine. How do you explain the professors that have students that can read and write in 7 languages, that produce original research before 20, that find ways of solving problems others thought impossible? Did it occur to that commentator that the university structure might be problematic, that it might be shortchanging the students who learn differently, that it might be forcing students into things they don’t feel are relevant because they’re not relevant?

The anonymous commentator might say that this dodges the question of people knowing the basics. But I respond that people only care for the basics when the larger goal has been set forth with clarity, and an articulate plan. The students described above, with their “different” ways of doing and learning, have carved out their own plan, and to see only the failures is really to see only institutions that can’t adapt in their decline, not what is representative of the young moving forward.

Also, as some who works in a university, how do you square the notion that this is the smartest generation, while those who work in higher ed rightly say that this group is the least literate, the least able to do basic math, the least knowledgable about geography, history, whatever? But I’ll bet they know everything there is to know about Halo.

Lordy knows, they’re throwing everything they’ve got at the fan in old fogey media land. Some of it’s bound to stick.
http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A20871

What do you think of the Dallas Morning News’ Sunday edition including a weekly comic book? I’m serious, they do.

With all the cutbacks elsewhere the threat is real, but is this the way to deal with it? Personally, I resent getting a paper filled with sections whose only purpose is to promote the most wasteful and superficial aspects of our society. I know that rich people have all the money, but is it really necessary for the Times to pander to them? Are they shallow enough that they will read and/or be influenced by this stuff? Don’t we have better uses for our forests than promoting over priced perfume and $100 per glass wines?

And, if the scheme works, won’t the end result be that the Times will attract more of the most profligate sectors of our society and then have to start changing their news coverage and outlook so as not to offend them?