I guess the difference I see is those of us that survived, ended up getting jobs and growing up. None of us became millionaires. Except the jacka$$ crew. If you wanna argue about it you can
This one still has me SMDH.Eating Tide Pods?
- Thread starter Urban Cryer
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I guess the difference I see is those of us that survived, ended up getting jobs and growing up. None of us became millionaires. Except the jacka$$ crew. If you wanna argue about it you can
This one still has me SMDH.
This reminds me of riding in a friend's car as we tore down I-65 between Montgomery and B'ham, well north of 100 mph, in pea soup fog. He was whooping it up.I was pondering whether it was a better survival plan to jump out, or wait for us to slam into the inevitable car/truck. He had the gall to be upset when I punched him in the face when we finally stopped.
Very true and I should have remembered that as I usually am the one to mention that to friends who are complaining about 'millennials'.
Uh...yeah. Kids at my sons HS don't sound like that. If you followed the thread about the rejection letter from FSU you'd know that kids are expected to do all sorts of crazy things just to get into state schools these days. We just slept-walked thru HS and "went to state" but now my son has a list of extra classes (most AP, advanced math, 4 years of language, etc) as well as volunteer work and sports if they want a shot at a decent state school here in CA. That's just the minimum. Then they need the grades an the test score, plus an essay that will convince some admission person that they've led an extraordinary enough life to join their school. It's insane to expect from teens. Throw in a job if they want any money (not that they have the time, my son's HS sport schedule is 5-6 days a week). Summer job? Well with the new "year round" schedules that's really only about 8 weeks now. And many of the older kids are taking classes at the local community college to try to keep up with the Joneses.
I stressed out about girls, and pimples, and my dad being a crazy overbearing ahole when I was a teen. Kids these days are already stressing out about college/gpa/testing when they're 13-14. They literally have their entire 4 years of HS classes plotted out for them in the 9th grade - including which college track they're taking. Man, all I knew about college when I was in the 9th grade was that my sister drank a lot there.
So, if they don't all check out, go broke, or off themselves before they're 30 - I think this generation will do just fine.
Fair enough but I will maintain that this generation of middle class and upwards teens are too coddled by their gen x parents, not punished enough for their stupidity, and taught just do well in this boatload of college tasks to keep your helicopter parent happy and nothing else you do wrong will matter that much.
I totally agree with Belem on this. If your kids go to a mediocre school, with mediocre teachers, and get mediocre grades, then they're way behind the curve. Kids in competitive schools are VERY aware of the 100 different "levers" that impact their college admissions (grades, test scores, AP courses, sports, community service, etc) and the impact that a change to any one of them will have on their chances of getting into their desired colleges. The amount of stress that one point in one class can cause because of the ripple effects that it can have drives these kids to tears - and worse. Imagine being 14 years old and knowing that getting a 92 vs a 93 means an A- vs an A, which could lower the GPA enough to move the kid down in the class ranking, which could keep them from getting into UVA (because UVA has a cap on how many kids from each Northern Virginia school district they'll accept every year). And imagine going through multiple years of SAT test prep tutoring because you know that 20 extra points on the SAT could mean getting into the school you want, or having to readjust your goals and "settle" - with the disappointment that will cause you and your parents.
While I certainly think that kids do some dumb things today (often in the name of social media), it would be naive of me not to also recognize that they're miles ahead of where I was at that age - not because I wasn't smart enough, but because the expectations were different. I was in 9th grade, and took 9th grade math - maybe the honors version, but I wouldn't have thought to ever jump ahead. My poor kid's in 9th grade taking the same math class I took as a senior. She's also going to start taking classes at the community college over the coming summer to get a jump on that. She did say that she's had a good laugh about the Tide Pod thing, because she doesn't think that anyone's actually done it.
I know not all parents are equal, but you should really have a talk with my poor kid! Coddled is the exact opposite of how she'd describe it. The school district has an online web portal that allows us to see her grades in real time for every assignment for every class, as soon as they're entered by the teachers. She hears from us over facebook messenger, with screen shots, if we see during the day that she didn't do well enough on an assignment.
My parents would have to wait until report cards came out to get on me - now report cards don't even matter because we've seen her grades every day throughout the grading period. And the conversation isn't even about failing classes - she's getting called out for getting 47/50 on a test ("What happened on those three questions?").
I think for a lot of kids - at least where we live - there isn't enough free time for kids to really be stupid - maybe over social media (see the separate thread on that), but not really in real life. The kids here that are getting in trouble in real life may be the same kids that are already falling behind their peers anyway.
Fair enough.
I think part of the point I was making was a lack of face to face time, certainly there are great folks like you who are an exception. But from observation of my own, I always see parents in the same room as their kids but with their faces buried in their phones or tablets. Back when I was running amok you had to actually talk to these old people and put up with their nonsense. Secretly they'd be infecting you with some wisdom, life lessons, and if you're lucky, stories about when they were younger. That seems to be missing to an extent these days. Also parents have taken a bit of a single minded focus on education being the end all be all, with a little less of a priority on being a good person. Surprisingly pop culture seems to have done a good job of creating social awareness in kids though, .. I'll take it I guess.
Super easy for me to judge as a guy with no kids who continues to go to bars 3-4 nights a week and does whatever the hell he pleases. I get that I'm speaking out of turn in this conversation.
Yeah, my son was freaking out over his final "group project" in PE. They had to create their own line dance. Now you and I know that the PE teachers assigned this purely for comedy value and that it likely would have zero effect on his grade - but to him it was an opportunity for others to screw up one of his grades and so he literally lost sleep over it.
Same with his Computer Science final. They had to program some robots to do several tasks and the units weren't working right and they were having trouble all week. He was nearly in tears. I tried to explain that his teacher was not going to destroy the grade (think it was over 100 before the finals) of a kid she was mailing positive notes home about because of technical issues with a robot. All this in his first set of finals as a freshman. My freshman year I might as well have been eating paste. Meanwhile he successfully petitioned to start junior year math this semester so that he could take pre-calc and calculus his sophomore year.
Same with his Computer Science final. They had to program some robots to do several tasks and the units weren't working right and they were having trouble all week. He was nearly in tears. I tried to explain that his teacher was not going to destroy the grade (think it was over 100 before the finals) of a kid she was mailing positive notes home about because of technical issues with a robot. All this in his first set of finals as a freshman. My freshman year I might as well have been eating paste. Meanwhile he successfully petitioned to start junior year math this semester so that he could take pre-calc and calculus his sophomore year.
I'm pretty sure that years from now her therapist will disagree with you and identify me as the source of all her problems.
I see this also. I've never understood how people could completely ignore their kids (and each other) like that when they're out to dinner, at a park, etc.
Now you're just pissing me off.
Oh man! Your kid and my kid should meet so they could trade stories and see that they're not alone! My poor kid spent a snow day complaining about a group project that she was working on - two of the kids in the group hadn't correctly entered all the citations online, so rather than reaching out to them to have them fix it, she just went ahead and corrected all of them to make sure they were right. When I was in 9th grade I would certainly have been the kid getting the free ride off the other group members doing all the work.
lol, both my kids just do all the group project work themselves because they don't trust the other kids in their groups. I don't know if the other kids end up doing any work in the end, but my kids have it covered if they don't.
Hell, at FSU I remember skating on a group project.
My daughter spent the last days of Christmas break working on a project for school that it turns out wasn't due for another week. She just likes doing it. Pretty sure the other kids hate her for it. She's in the 7th grade and they had to invent a game for some class or another. She literally invented a board game. Board, pieces, rules. Played it with my wife all break. She loves stuff like that and goes overboard on every assignment. My son, he's driven by results. It's the grade he's after. Doesn't care what it looks like/functions so long as it gets the score he desires. I worry about him because of that. You have to enjoy process if you're going to last I think.
Sounds like your son is right on, just 20 years too early! Nothing wrong with a B or C effort if it gets the right result, as long as you're in charge and get to make that call.
Yeah, it took me 4 decades to get as cynical as he is already. Frightening.
I see a lot of students here with your son’s mindset, Belem, and it’s a major challenge and a struggle. We have already put three kids in the back of a ucpd cruiser to the hospital today due to not knowing how to wrap their heads around the fact that sometimes, no matter how hard they try and no matter what they do, they are not going to get the academic or professional outcome they believe that they must obtain. And it’s only 1:30PM.
Work smart, not hard.
His son will be a consultant. Turning metaphorical knobs to see the result, via spreadsheet.
My daughter was like that with a group project while completing her Master's. She had an online class with a group from all over the country. She not only did her work but corrected the work of others because they all got graded together. She was not going to let someone else's poor effort influence her grade.
Wow. Learning to fail is a big part of learning to succeed. Fear of failure will keep you from taking the risk necessary to advance.
If you look at it statistically, this generation is the most moral, ethical and law abiding of any generation of teens and 20yos. And honestly one of the hardest working. I think the Gen Xers, Gen Yers and new crop of Millenials will combine to fix most of what the Baby Boomers broke in their greed in the late 80s through early 00s.
Many of them have never failed before, especially academically. Nevertheless, I think it's less about learning to fail and more about the fear that they have internalized that failure means destitution and shame for themselves and their families. The stakes feel so high for them that a B means that they won't be a doctor and they won't be able to support their families and that they will let everybody down.
Absolutely. And it's not pressure that I feel we push on him. As a kid I was punished (severely) for poor grades. I never took that path with my kids. I reward them for good grades, but don't punish them for poor ones. Ok, that's never happened, but they know the formula and there is no punishment.
I think my daughter will be ok when the inevitable failure comes - she's dealt with injury that's knocked her out of play-off games, etc. But my son - I think he truly believes that he's too smart to fail. And that intelligence is a large part of his ego. He'll probably manage to get thru HS without putting a dent in that self-image...but after that?
I think so much of that pressure and identification is coming not from parents, but from a society that continues to focus solely on the scoreboard and to tally points through accumulation of money. College, itself, is now readily and enthusiastically characterized not as a place to get an education, but as a way to get a high paying job. The denigration of the working class and the deification of the rich is so destructive to individuals attempting to find their place and make their way in the world.
No, it should not. College is not vocational training. It's never been vocational training, and the structure of college is entirely unsuited to being vocational training. College is a terrible place to seek preparation for a job. We literally have professional and vocational schools that serve that purpose well. College can not and should not be expected to do so, as well. We don't go to lawyers to get surgery or a cavity filled.
To me that pressure comes from the reality created by the increasing class divide. You're either going to become a "with" or a "without", because there's less and less of a middle ground. If you're down to those two choices, then you (You being the kids, the parents, whomever) have to do everything you can to make sure that you've maximized the odds of becoming a "with". Maybe it's unfair, maybe it's too much pressure, but it's increasingly being seen as the reality - like it or not. So you have parents in my school district putting their kids into year-round test prep beginning in elementary school so they can take the Thomas Jefferson HS entrance exam in 8th grade, so they can get into MIT/Ivy, so they can be assured of becoming a "with".
My school district has two specialized high schools - Academy of Science, and Academy of Engineering. Most of these parents had their kids trying for both academies because it wasn't about getting into the school that aligned with their kids' interests or aptitudes, but just getting into either one of them, because of the advantage it would give their kids. My kid didn't want to try for the Academy of Engineering, because she didn't want to be an engineer - okay, fine with me.
And I don't think that's just reflective of the parents being overly pushy - it's the result of our society that's eliminating the "middle ground" jobs that were respected and represented the large soft comfortable space between being wealthy and being homeless. I think the reality is that, to some extent, we are heading to a place where you're going to be one or the other.
Depends on the major, doesn't it?
A school's accounting program teaches accounting, that an accounting student would need to be an accountant.
A school's law school teaches the laws (and legal theory) needed for a law student to be a lawyer.
Alongside those programs, there are other courses that help in their professional development - like a business communications class so students can hopefully create appropriate correspondence. A public speaking class so they can stand up and present to groups without freaking out and throwing up.
There aren't professional or vocational schools for "professional" white collar jobs. Colleges have designed detailed, specific curriculum for many different types of professions - I think so that the businesses would come to rely on the schools to provide that preparation. It's been successful to the point where entry level jobs are requiring bachelor (and increasingly master's) degrees to even meet a minimum basic requirement.
I think that it's unrealistic to expect college to be seen as preparing the "whole" person any more.
I think UCLA is saying it "should not", not that it isn't currently expected to. Back in the day you went to college to become "educated", and then you decided what you were going to do with your life. Now you have to decide what you are going to do with your life when you're 16-17 so that you can go to the "right" college to get the "right" degree for that profession. It's messed up.
Sure - back then going to college meant learning how to think, and how to be a more complete person. Unfortunately, nowadays that's only useful if you have a trust fund to support you. Otherwise, you have to be qualified to work - and qualified means having a degree; hopefully in a field related to what you're wanting to do.
I think back in the day there were fewer jobs that required fewer specialized skills. Being a doctor meant knowing how to amputate limbs, affix leaches and prescribe opium. Being a lawyer meant being able to make cogent arguments, but didn't necessarily include specializing in maritime, petroleum, entertainment, environmental, etc. law. There's so much more stuff now, and it's so much more specialized, that it's not enough to be good at thinking - like a Lincoln or a Jefferson. Those guys wouldn't survive today with the same backgrounds they came up with. I mean, look at Jefferson's educational background via Wiki:
"Jefferson began his childhood education beside the Randolph children with tutors at Tuckahoe. In 1752, he began attending a local school run by a Scottish Presbyterian minister. At age nine, he started studying the natural world as well as three languages: Latin, Greek, and French. By this time he also learned to ride horses. He was taught from 1758 to 1760 by Reverend James Maury near Gordonsville, Virginia, where he studied history, science, and the classics while boarding with Maury's family.
Jefferson entered the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, at age 16 and studied mathematics, metaphysics, and philosophy under Professor William Small. Small introduced him to the British Empiricists including John Locke, Francis Bacon, and Isaac Newton. Jefferson improved his French and Greek and his skill at the violin. He graduated two years after starting in 1762. He read the law under Professor George Wythe's tutelage to obtain his law license, while working as a law clerk in Wythe's office. He also read a wide variety of English classics and political works."
For back then he was very well educated. Nowadays there's no way he's getting into W&M, and there's no way he's becoming a lawyer. He'd be some guy working at a Costco, who people really like listening to when he talks.
I know that comes across as incredibly cynical, but I don't think you'd ever hear of any of the founding fathers or other "great thinkers" if they had to come up today.
I think that's selective memory. For most of history, kids had very little face time with fathers, unless they messed up.
You do mention some legit things that happen, but there is zero evidence that it's more common than ever before.
One thing to keep in mind that before social media and the sensational 24 hour news cycle, there was almost no visibility on teenage life outside the white, upper middle class in the eastern media centers. Nobody gave a crap what life was life in Kentucky, or New Mexico, or the ghetto, or border towns, etc. What we think we know of teenage behavior and uprightness is from the likes of Leave it to Beaver, Family Ties, etc. That's why the heavy metal/satanic panic was such a big deal in the 80s...it was an extremely minor to non-existent social ill that just happened to scrape against the "our teens" that anyone cared about.
I guarantee you that life in poor communities, rural places, ethnic communities etc had just as much misbehavior and stupidness and challenges and more so back then. But until the age of social media and hip hop allowed them to tell their own stories, and new was rewarded for going an FINDING shocking stories...nobody really knew or cared.
It looks a lot worse when we're not restricting ourselves to the stories of upper middle class white kids of educated parents. We're getting a fuller picture now, but that doesn't mean there is anything newly negative. Its just that now we see the full picture, and not just a filtered one.
This is a classic Locker Room thread. Started to bash the general intelligence of today's youth and evolved into a discussion of the university education system and great thinkers in history. Classic.
Bingo. This is it for me. There is virtually no such thing as being "poor (or lower middle class) but happy" which is the way I grew up. If you don't make top ten percentile income, it's very likely your public schools are trash and dangerous, your neighborhood is crime ridden, etc. There are probably a few pockets here or there, but the kind of blue collar neighborhoods that I grew up in, that were lower middle class, but safe and stable, with resources like public pools and parks and programs, and good public schools...those just aren't really there.
We don't put pressure on our kids to do more than they're capable of academically, but we harp them about decisions...choosing the right kinds of career paths, developing good credit, making the right relationship decisions, etc. Because in today's world, life as a poor or even lower middle class is almost certainly hard and unpleasant. "We don't have much, but we have each other and we're happy" just isn't really a thing any more. If you don't have a really good job, you have a terrible job.
There are plenty of reasons for this, but the bottom line is there's no "we'll be fine" any more. If you get pregnant and married without finishing and education, your life almost has to suck. If you run up 100k in debt and can't afford a certain level of house, or qualify for a certain apartment, your kids will get a terrible education.
It's a shame that's the world now, but it is what it is, and we're doing our best to keep our kids above the cutoff.
Outside a few specific areas like higher ed I truly believe your education matters only for your first job or two. After that, you will largely rise or fall on your value to your organization, your street smarts and EQ and your ability to put yourself on the radar of people who want to help you succeed (and are in a position to reward you for your contributions). I'm amazed at how many people don't want to play the corporate game and then wonder why they don't get the big pay raise or promotion.
No, it should not. College is not vocational training. It's never been vocational training, and the structure of college is entirely unsuited to being vocational training. College is a terrible place to seek preparation for a job. We literally have professional and vocational schools that serve that purpose well. College can not and should not be expected to do so, as well. We don't go to lawyers to get surgery or a cavity filled.
I think some of this is terminology. When I say "professional school," I am referencing business schools, where an accounting student would learn to be an accountant, and law schools, where a law student would learn to be a law student, and medical schools and engineering schools and all the other standalone professional schools.
These programs are distinct in nature and mission from the liberal arts colleges where the vast majority of Americans are obtaining undergraduate degrees. This distinction used to be a lot more clear before the big universities started getting insecure and equating prestige with professional degrees, rather than academic degrees, and started opening their own on-campus professional schools. Colleges, as we generally use that term to refer to undergraduate institutions that lead to bachelors degree in a particular liberal arts domain, do not have professional development curriculum, and they shouldn't.
Perhaps it's messed up, but that's the way it is. Unless or until the system changes, people go to college to prepare them for the workforce. Having a good job is a major factor in having a good life. Money doesn't cause happiness, but lack of money surely causes a lot of stress. Even a minimalist requires a a decent amount of money in today's world.
It's actually the other way around. The belief that colleges should be vocational training centers is what is killing the modern universities and undermining the education available at many of them. Academia and universities preceded the industrial revolution and its subsequent impact on how our society views education by a thousand years, and they will survive our current turmoil, just as they have survived all previous attacks.
The vast majority of college students don't go to liberal arts colleges. The vast majority of students go to college to get a good job, even if they do go to a liberal arts college. Nice try at backtracking though.
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