Here is Dr. Bauerlein one final (mercifully) time -
And here is a link to their debate for AEI.
Now here is his opponent, Neil Howe -
And here is Howe refuting Bauerlein's claim at the AEI discussion. How can one generation be either the dumbest generation or the smartest?
Please leave two pieces of feedback. One, offer a final summary of Bauerlein's claim against your generation. Second, choose one topic Bauerlein criticizes your generation for and explain how Howe sees that topic as a positive of your generation.
Bauerlein's chief argument against the millennials is that social media has surrounded you with peer culture. Yes, youth have always been surrounded by youth culture, but the millennials are almost overloaded with this. Worse, the millennials can tune out any adult influence if they so choose. As a result, their only real feedback and role models are their peers. Bauerlein sees this as a terrible thing, for it hinders your reading interests, your intellectual habits, and your moral development.
ReplyDeleteHowe disputes this claim made by Bauerlein. He argues that there is not a generational gulf between millennials and their parents. If the youth, as Bauerlein claims really just tuned out their parents, would they have overlap on their iPods and still live at home with them after college? Howe sees this not as a necessity (unable to find jobs, the millennials return home). Instead he sees this as both a wise economic move (to save money as a result of college being more expensive than ever and an economy that is not exactly thriving - none of which can be blamed on millennials. He also notes just how much the millennials trust their parents. Where was the trust for the baby boomers?)
ReplyDeleteBeing so connected leaves us not having face to face contact. He is saying it hurts us because we cant communicate as well. This does not represent everyone and don't believe its true.
ReplyDeleteApparently teen to teen contact is blocking out teachers. Many students, myself included, respect my teachers enough not to use my phone unless we have some sort of down time. Bauerlein is a grouchy old man who doesn't understand the direction our world is going. Technology is how things will get done.
ReplyDeleteHaving a phone and being able to text when ever I want hasn't made me ignore my parents, teacher, ext. Dumbest and invalid point ever.
ReplyDeleteBeing able to text just lets us be in contact with more then one person. Would he rather us send letters to slow it down?
DeleteBauerlein states that we are shutting out the voices of teachers and adults because we spend so much time using technology. I don't agree with this at all. One thing our generation is good at is multitasking. Doing one thing doesn't have to take away from another.
ReplyDeleteBauerlein says were lazy while Howe commends us for being so involved in extracurricular activities. Howe say's it is great how we re in robotics and stuff like that. Howe mentions how busy and involved we are. This completely proves Bauerlein wrong.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand how Bauerlein can say we are not getting smarter when more students are taking the SAT, IQ scores are going up, and if taken into account all the options of reading, our generation is reading more than ever. We're moving technology back toward the community. It makes us more united. We are not going to be the type to go up and ask about the war overseas or who our third president was. If I were to bet, Mark Bauerlein wouldn't either.
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ReplyDeleteIt is strange that Howe and Bauerlein can both cite the same source (NAEP) and come up with completely different conclusions. It seems that one man is optimistic and the other a pessimist. Bauerlein says that we continually decline in those test and are less intelligent. Howe say that our NAEP scores are better and and that our SAT scores are as high as they have ever been.
ReplyDeleteBauerlein is saying we don't communicate with teachers but we can get ahold of them easily if we really wanted to through email. He says that our IQ tests are going down but they've been declining since the '60s.
ReplyDeleteBauerlein says that we don't do leisure reading and Howe says that we don't have as much leisure time as back in the day. Our schedules are so much more complex because we are involved in so many more things.
ReplyDeleteBauerlein says that we are losing our sense of civic responsibility while Howe says that we are improving family life and becoming more involved in our own community. Where is the disconnect between the two?
ReplyDeleteI agree with Howe when he said that the reason the millennial generation doesn't read for pleasure because we just don't have time. We are too busy with school, work and sports to read. So the time we do have to do stuff we do things that interest us, we don't spend our little bit of free time watching the news or reading textbooks.
ReplyDeleteHowe commends our volunteer work, and involvement in activities like robotics. Also, he says that no generation is any smarter or dumber all the way around then another. I think that we might not be smart in the ways Bauerleins considers because we use our time doing other things and learning different in other ways.
DeleteHe believes that we are the lowest reading generation. Also, we do not care about civics and history so we will make some of the most uniformed citizens because we only care about technology.
ReplyDeleteOverall, the focus of Bauerlein's ideas seems to be that despite greater opportunity and resources, this generation is leading to a decline in American intelligence and ingenuity. He supports this by issuing an unending torrent of fact and information, that paints Millennials in a negative light. He also makes the claim that Today's social culture is the primary cause of this intellectual dark age, as it prevents this younger generation from accessing the improved resources by misdirecting the youth's intelligence.
ReplyDeleteHowe finally rebuts Bauerlein's comments about millennials doing less reading for pleasure by adding that we just have a more structured life with less free time. This couldn't be more true. The average millennial just doesn't have as much free time compared to earlier generations.
ReplyDeleteBauerlein claims that our generation has become so immersed in technology that we no longer care about the concerns of "adult life." He thinks that our constant ability to socialize with one another digitally allows us to block out what adults are trying to tell us. He says we no longer read as much, making us less adept in areas like history, politics, and the arts.
ReplyDeleteBauerlein's argument against the Millennial generation is that all technology is bad for you. That all technology is making everyone dumber and that we should throw out all of our generation.
ReplyDeleteMark argues against Bauerlein, my favorite quote is "We boomers wanted to bring intellectual down the age scale. Now we want to bring it up the age scale. It seems what ever age we are we want to have intellectual authority and make us more intellectual then the other generation." I cannot agree more with this statement, it pretty much sums up everything that is wrong with Bauerlein's arguments. Bauerlein and the boomers just want to be part of the most intellectual generation.
Bauerlein claims technology is making us dumber, but Howe mentions how our intelligence shines through technology and what we are able to do with it.
ReplyDeleteMark says we are getting dumber, but Howe says that our grades are higher.
ReplyDeleteI like how Neil accepted the study that Bauerlein used and talked about why were not reading as much. WE HAVE NO TIME! I have heard my mom say all the time how she and her friends went out all the time, they didn't have to worry as much about homework, clubs, sports, and working. We use the technology to help balance all of those activities.
ReplyDeleteBauerlein says that we are blocking out parents, teachers, and other adult figures in our lives and tuning into our peers too much. I agree that we tune into peers more, but this is because we've grown up with technology and people our own age are the ones who understand that. If adults were to use technology as much as we do, we'd tune into them more. Its just how we've grown up and what keeps us interested.
ReplyDeleteBauerlien is saying that our generation is disconnected from our world because of all the technology we have, we are shutting teachers/parents out and are focusing too much on our devices and not enough time in our books.
ReplyDeleteBauerlein rips on us for not knowing "moral and philosophical complexities." Howe, on the other hand, says that the fact that we don't dwell on these things allows us to move on to bigger and better things.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting comparison of Bauerlein and Howe's views is their ideas on the social culture that has been formed of late. Bauerlein makes the claim that this culture dumbs down the youth by attracting their attention and penalizing them for doing the "right" things in regard to their intelligence.
ReplyDeleteHowe makes the claim that this movement is really a return to older ideals and tenants of a community that had been lost in the Baby Boomers ascension to the spotlight.
Bauerlein seems to think we are some lazy generation that does nothing but tweet and watch reality television and run away from books. Howe says that we are so structured and involved, we simply don't have time for pleasure reading. I agree with Howe, I read plenty over the summer because I wasn't so busy with homework and extra curricular.
ReplyDeleteBauerlein criticizes how we spend too much time with technology, but Howe argues against that saying that with this, our test scores are rising, more people are taking tests then before so it is indeed rising. Technology keeps us involved with our peers, and we have don't have time to read anymore because all of our time is taken up already.
ReplyDeleteBauerlein and Howe both citing the same sources just shows how a bias opinion can direct your view different ways on one single topic or piece of information. Now although book stores across the nation are closing, or losing customers, e-book sales are rising showing that teens are not necessarily loosing their interest in books just updating their style of reading.
ReplyDeleteBauerlein states that we are spending to much time with technology. One of his main points is that it is going to effect how we are with face to face contact and socializing in the real world. What he doesn't put into consideration is how much better we have become at multitasking.
ReplyDeleteBauerlein just keeps saying that we don't read enough books for leisure and that is making us dumber and dumber. Howe says that books are not the primary source of reading now days; there are electronic devices to use. He says book sales are up since 2000, so that has to say something about us...
ReplyDeleteI also like that Howe says no generation is smarter or dumber than the other ones.
Bauerlein focuses so much on the positivity and the need of reading for fun, where as Howe realizes that in our generation, there isn't much time for leisure reading.
ReplyDeleteI liked how Howe realizes that there isn't time for leisure reading that Bauerlein says we need. Our generation has too much pressure to be involved with too many other things to have time for leisure reading.
ReplyDeleteBauerlein is wrong when he says that teen to teen contact is blocking out teachers. Many teachers don't allow the use of cellphones in class and students respect that enough to not use them. Bauerlein shouldn't keep focusing on how much teens don't read today and start focusing on how technology is going to be the future of our generation. Times have changed.
ReplyDeleteBauerlein says that were getting dumber, but Howe says that were a smart generation and are preforming better.
ReplyDeleteBauerlein thinks that our immersion in technology is hindering us and making us too self-involved. He believes that it makes us not listen to adults or take part in adult affairs, like politics.
ReplyDeleteHowe refutes Bauerlein's claims that we will be the least civically involved generation. Howe believes that our technology will help connect us and make our involvement even greater so that we can be a political powerhouse.
ReplyDeleteBauerlein compared how much people read in 1982 to 2002. Sure we don't read as much but we also don't have as much leisure time as they did at that time period! I'm sure the amount of homework we receive has increased, and also the amount of activities students are involved in has increased. He also brings up how history, civics, and other areas of education that we "need" to know but in reality we don't need to memorize this because we have the resources to find all of these answers!
ReplyDeleteHowe states how we have much more intelligence than philosophical complexity . . . if we want society to move forward then we have to put those things away! Because we aren't as interested in philosophical complexity, it doesn't make us less intelligent! He also notices how we have less "pleasure" time compared to the past and uses that to argue against Bauerlein when he states we read less than in 1982.
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