Book review: The Dumbest Generation
The book:
The Dumbest Generation:
How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future
Or, Don’t Trust Anyone Under 30
By Mark Bauerlein—Published by The Penguin Group, 2008
Mark Bauerlein is a Professor of English at Emory University. He has worked as a director of Research and Analysis at the National Endowment for the Arts where he oversaw studies about culture and American Life.
Reviewed by Hugh, November 2008
Also check out...
The Dumbest Generation by Mark Bauerlein has its own web site.
The Dumbest Generation on Amazon.com
ON THE OTHER HAND:
The most extensive U.S. study on teens and their use of digital media finds that America’s youth are developing important social and technical skills online – often in ways adults do not understand or value.
This review in Newsweek suggests Bauerlein overdoes it. "Writing off any generation before it's 30 is what's dumb."
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Bauerlein puts great emphasis on reading as necessary to complete education. He is not only talking about text books, but all sorts of reading—newspapers, magazines, novels, even comic books as necessary for well rounded learning and vocabulary development. He cites a study titled “What Reading Does to the Mind” by education psychologists Cunningham and Stanovich. They identified the frequency which rare or unusual words would be encountered in various communication media believing that the vocabulary of the person encountering the words would be enhanced by the experience. By far, more of these words were found in print media than in oral material. This was true at all levels. Preschool children who read or were read to from age appropriate books were eight time more likely to encounter vocabulary building words during these activities than they were by watching Sesame Street.
By not reading, The Millenials not only have limited their vocabulary, but also have denied themselves any historical perspective. They may encounter serious text in the classroom providing education in the history of politics, art, music, poetry, philosophy or economics, and if they take them seriously, something may stay with them. However, without recreational reading, they miss the colorful fiction that illustrates the mores and foibles of particular historical periods. They may get world history texts or even Karl Marx and Winston Churchill, but they need Jane Austin, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, John Steinbeck, James Michener, Ken Follett, and many others. While the fiction writers may skew the historical facts for the sake of their plot, usually they have to present a correct picture of the time period to avoid anachronisms.
Bauerlein also condemns the group he calls “The Mentors.” These are the people who instruct and guide the Millenials. These include the harassed parents who have adopted electronic babysitters. Needing time for household chores or just downtime to unwind, they have discovered that their children do not bother them when placed in front of a TV set or a game on the computer. Also included is an educational system that has embraced computers in the classroom. They also laud the “Shift from passive, instructor-dominated pedagogy to active, learner-centered activities,” according to a 2003 NSSE report quoted by the author.
Young people are not being mentored by their elders, but are being educated by their peers—not only in the classroom, but also more certainly in their digital/electronic out of school activities. Their education is an insular, inbred type of learning that dismisses any innate truths. Applying the familiar George Santayana quote "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it," the Millenials are so condemned. This concept not only includes political history, but also economic, cultural and social history. Today’s young people will have to reinvent the wheel, and they will have to do it without even knowing the wheel’s function.
If there is a criticism of the book, it is that Mark Bauerlein does not offer a solution to these troubling problems. However, his final words are sobering. At the very end of his book, he says, “The youth of America occupy a point in history like every other generation did and will, and if things do not change they will be remembered as the fortunate ones who were unworthy of the privileges they inherited. They may even be recalled as the generation that lost that great American heritage, forever.”
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For countless generation of human history, parents passed down knowledge to their children based on their experiences. From earliest times, this worked because little changed and if the child heeded the parent’s advice, they would get along well as they made their way through the world. I am sure that there were always some adolescent rebellions, but this passed with maturity and the recognition that the parent was in fact correct. The child then passed similar advice to the next generation.
As I grew through this process, I concluded that possibly my generation, and certainly that of my children, could question the wisdom of their elders based on the advances of the Digital Age that were often better understood by the younger generation. We thought the devices and techniques spawned by the digital revolution could mitigate or completely render obsolete the tenets of the older generation. While my father often told me he remembered seeing his first automobile, I remember seeing my first jet plane, television set, desktop computer, cell phone, and countless other modern devices. Science has handed us more gadgets and devices in the last 100 years than in all previous human history, and the exponential pace of development is not abating.
If Mark Bauerlein is correct, the young people he identifies as “The Millenials,” those born between 1980 and 2000 as defined by a 2005 Forrester Research report have carried the process so far that they do not see the need to learn anything from the past. Bauerlein credits the Philip Roth novel The Human Stain for the term “The Dumbest Generation” that he uses for this group. My interest was piqued when I realized that this demographic includes all of my six grandchildren.
Bauerlein’s primary thesis is that the media and digital revolution touted as a great boom to education has not fulfilled the promise, and, in fact, has stifled important learning from books, magazines, newspapers and other hard copy sources. He cites numerous studies showing that in spite of the billions spent to put computers in classrooms, there is no indication of higher test scores at any level. The number of college freshmen requiring remedial courses before the university can integrate them into the mainstream college curriculum has not reduced. The incidence of employers reporting graduates entering the work force without the necessary skills to function in the business world continues to climb.
It is not that the younger generation does not know how to use computers and other digital and electronic gadgets. It is that they use them reluctantly for learning, but eagerly for leisure. Games from Game Boy to XBox to Wii occupy much time. So does peer to peer communication. If you picture the telephone scene in the musical Bye Bye Birdie, this kind of gossipy chitchat is no longer restricted by time of space. FaceBook, MySpace, YouTube, text messaging and blogs are ubiquitous. The young person spends so much time on these activities that it infringes on homework, and the notion of recreational reading is out of the question. They do not read even from the computer. They may casually surf the web, but a PDF file will be dismissed quickly with a click of the mouse and the delete key.