Digital Kids: Smartest or Dumbest? Interview 2: Neil Howe

Has digital overload made today's generation of students stupid or smart? Two experts debate this question in their respective new books.

Interview with Neil Howe, a historian, economist, demographer and co-author of "Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation".

Category:

Education

Tags:

• education
• Neil
• Howe
• digital
• week
• American
• Enterprise
• Institute

[blacktigerpaw1]

@leeroynaggins Unfortunately, he is wrong. If you look at feminism and numerous other hateful ideologies, you will find that this generation is plagued with them. It is a confused lot, to say the least. And paranoid.

[leeroynaggins]

I kind of hope Neil Howe is right...

[Sshelly34213]

@davidjradich I'm sorry teaching didn't work out for you, by the way have a nice holiday!

[Sshelly34213]

@davidjradich I don't get them either, but I think you can point to any decade and find horrendous music mistakes. Duran Duran certainly comes to my mind when I think of the 80s. I kind of see my generation's identity as fragmented. There really is no major pop cultural icon for my decade. I don't think my generation has one because we're not angry. There's no real older voice telling us not to do something. There's no one saying "hip hop" is the devil, so there's no need to rebel in that manner

[davidjradich]

@Sshelly34213 I do wish that when I began teaching, that there would have been a focus on that, perhaps I would still be teaching instead of having burnt out. As for music taste and ideology...Some of the Ideology, I can understand. Music...Well, I will never get Rap, hip hop or Lady Gaga. Sorry.

[davidjradich]

@Sshelly34213 Same reason grandparents spoil their grand kids. The boomers did a shitty job of parenting my generation and are now trying to make up for their mistakes.

[davidjradich]

@Sshelly34213 I can understand your point, but nobody ever tried to accommodate me or my generation's learning style. It was shut up and do what you are told and if you can't hack it you fail. So that is my experience. Maybe it is not right, but we are formed by our experiences.

[davidjradich]

@Sshelly34213 You have some valid points, but honestly. I lost my patience and compassion over the years to deal with those differences and that is one major reason I quit teaching. Another issue is that my generation was neglected and abused for the most part and your generation is one of the most coddled. I know I must sound a little bitter saying this, but I am in a way, just as many in my generation. Interesting discussion. Thanks for the perspective.

[Sshelly34213]

@davidjradich A lot of people have gone about how there's not "generation gap" between the older and younger generations anymore, but there is a gap. I believe that is a communication gap, your generation doesn't understand how to teach us and we don't understand how to learn from you. There's the generation gap, it has nothing to do with silly music tastes and ideology like it did with the hippies and Xers.

[Sshelly34213]

@davidjradich How you process and absorb information and knowledge varies and just because I don't do it in the same way you do, doesn't mean I'm stupid or have a low IQ. This type of attitude creates an environment that pushes my generation way, this is why you're seeing a lot of kids from my generation leaving college or having a tough time. Your attitude and lack of understanding how my generation learns, pushes my generation away. There's a cruelness to it that we don't like.