Reflection Post

The assignment for this post is to reflect on how I believe Mark Bauerlein's The Dumbest Generation can be practically applied to my classroom or professional setting. It makes me wonder why the creators of this class offered this book as a reading option. The book essentially argues against everything we are being encouraged to do in our classrooms. Even if I don't agree with everything Bauerlein presents and even if I found most of the book to be riddled with statistics and no discussion of how to make a change, the book did make me think. The book also validated personal beliefs that I already held that included resisting the over inclusion of technology in the classroom and the over indulgence of my students' whims and interests. However, these are core ideas being presented in this course. Each week I felt as if the required reading for the course directly contradicted my reading from Bauerlein. Obviously, this is not a bad thing. As I stated in my final discussion positing over chapter six, and as Bauerlein himself would argue, it is important to be well informed about both sides of an argument. Maybe I have answered my own query; the creators of the class wanted to present the counter argument against the main points of the class. If it has done nothing else, it has in fact made me think and reflect.

In relation to age, I am a member of Bauerlein's "dumbest generation." I am under 30 years of age and he frequently quotes statistics from my years in high school and college. Part of me became defensive and indignant towards his ideas; part of me agreed with him based on what I see in my classroom. However, in some ways I see myself, and many of my peers, disproving his argument. Then again, I enjoy reading for pleasure and I frequently have intellectual discussions with my close friends and significant other, which would eliminate me from his main focus, but I also have friends and acquaintances that fit every definition of Bauerlein's "dumbest generation."

Since I am caught between believing everything Bauerlein says and wanting to stand my ground and defy his observations, I plan to use this in the classroom as a means of defining and understanding the students before me. If nothing else, the statistics and observations Bauerlein has made about today's youth are accurate. It is now up to us as educators to decide if where we are heading is a good thing (which Bauerlein says it is not) or whether we need to take a stance and demand a change and a return to traditional education (which Bauerlein says we should). Personally, I tend to lean towards the latter, at least in terms of demanding our students still be taught key basic concepts, which they can later apply to their areas of special interest; however, I also realize education will never be what it once was. Just like the student and the technology, it must evolve.