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| The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30) | 
 enlarge | Author: Mark Bauerlein
Publisher: Tarcher
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $7.34
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Avg. Customer Rating:  43 reviews
Sales Rank: 9773
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 1585426393
Dewey Decimal Number: 302.231
EAN: 9781585426393
ASIN: 1585426393
Publication Date: May 15, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Great ideas, once he finally gets rolling June 19, 2008
35 out of 45 found this review helpful
I am old enough to know how to do mental arithmetic. Excluding the copious bibliography, this is a 236 page book that does not really get rolling until page 163. That's two-thirds of the way through. The first several chapters are a laborious accounting of all of the new generation's shortcomings. The chapter titles are "Knowledge Deficits", "The New Bibliophobes," "Screen Time," and "Online Learning And Not Learning." He marshals exhaustive documentation to demonstrate that today's kids do not read much and consequently do not have a very impressive vocabularies, knowledge of history, or familiarity with math and science.
In the last 10 years I have been a high school teacher and a grad student at the university. I would have granted these points rather readily. Moreover, most people who would dispute these points are not going to sit down and read a book that delights in exercising a postgraduate level vocabulary. My most poignant critique of this book would be that, excellent as it may be, the writing alone make it inaccessible to "The Dumbest Generation." If not them, who is Bauerlein trying to convince?
After he has successfully brushed off the dummies Bauerlein's last couple of chapters, which attempt to explain the phenomenon, make a series of very good points. We adults who are supposed to be in charge of our children's formation and education have abdicated our responsibilities. We have found it easier to cave in to them. To mistake a facile familiarity with the use of electronic gadgetry to socialize with deep understanding. To ascribe literary merit to their puerile Facebook blogs. To let them retreat for hours to their bedrooms surrounded by cell phones, telephones, computers, and every form of video and audio entertainment. To back away from engaging them in meaningful adult conversation about serious topics. They are growing up without adult guidance, only the now obligatory strokes to their self-esteem. The result is a disaster.
We allow our children to reject their cultural heritage in toto, not because they have examined it and found it wanting, but because it would be simply too much work to become familiar with it. Bauerlein cites young artists who have only contempt for the discipline that made Rembrandt and Picasso the great artists that they were. They proclaim that everything can be successfully invented ad novum, not on the basis of any evidence but on the conviction that it is not worth the effort to learn from what has been done previously. They are simply lazy and self-absorbed.
I am familiar with Bauerlein's geographical references in the Washington, DC area. He starts by talking about Walt Whitman high school, the subject of "The Overachievers," a chronicle of obsessive high school students. My daughter recently graduated from that school, and I would say that her peers put little premium on genuine learning. Some did study very hard to ace the standardized tests, but the passion for socializing certainly outweighed the passion for learning.
I could say the same for the elite private schools in which I taught. There is a minority, but it is a distinct minority, who relish discussing ideas. Even there, most kids seem to be caught up with the anti-intellectualism of our popular culture. There is a general disdain for hard work. Some of this disdain has its origins in the self-esteem movement. The schools want to avoid anything that will tend to highlight differences in innate ability among students. Even talented students are readily complicit in this game, because it means more time for their friends and other pursuits.
It was not much better at the University of Maryland, to which I return to pursue an advanced degree. Some of the older students in the College of Education seemed genuinely interested in the coursework. For most it was simply something to get out of the way so they can get on with their lives. The statistics Department was substantially better, but it is telling that out of a Department of 60 some graduate students, I was close to the only WASP male. The department was overwhelmingly Asian, and overseas Asians at that. Good students, but not a good reflection on American secondary education.
Bauerlein does not propose much in the way of remedies. I do not think that there are any. I live now in Kiev, where university level academics appear to have somewhat more rigor than in the United States, but the same pernicious effects are at work. The Internet cafes are so full of video game nuts that you can barely find the terminal to check your e-mail. No kid goes five minutes without initiating or receiving a call or an SMS on their cell phone.
Computer technologies in themselves are not bad. Word, Dragon Naturally Speaking, Excel and the Internet are Godsends for people who work with information. The question is getting kids to use them intelligently.
My own modest proposal would be to teach children how to use technology to do their schoolwork. It is a given that they all have computers. It is a tragedy that they do not know how to do anything useful with Excel, research a paper using the Internet to do much more than plagiarize, put together a PowerPoint presentation that is longer on substance that blinking whirligigs, or even use Microsoft Word to format the paper properly. I believe schools could teach this. I further believe that schools could use blocks to prevent rampant wasting of time cruising the Internet for material totally unrelated to school. I think that they could prevent the computer CD-ROM readers from being used to blare music during study halls. In a nutshell, I think that if we adults gave a damn about the future of the country, we might bestir ourselves to retake the control over our children and their education that we ceded in the 1960s. I'm not holding my breath.
 Presumably, this is why 'Boomers refuse to pay us? May 19, 2008
28 out of 90 found this review helpful
Ah, yes... surely, the blame for the lack of education is on this new-fangled technological whosit. Because it certainly couldn't be any of the factors caused by the very generation who raised the Millenials. You know... refusing to pay for schools because they don't want to pay more taxes. Continued insistance on political, gender, and social divisiveness and a refusal of and fear of change. Or, my personal favourite, what is frequently mentioned on the very internet you despise, "Precious Little Snowflake" Syndrome.
Naturally, there's also the possible explanation of students taking a studied disinterest in academia after spending years under pressure from their parents. These days, having a "baby genius" is considered a status symbol as much an expensive car or a nice house. No one likes being anyone else's symbol of anything instead of their child. Is it any wonder that, when their parents are only seeing them and treating them as such, that they seek acceptance from somewhere else? Is the attention paid to technology and social netowrking really that surprising? It isn't the most mature reaction, but at the age when this could have been corrected, the Millenial generation wasn't mature.
Take responsibility for the monster you created, Boomers. This is about the third or fourth purported explanation I've seen on my own about the currently college-aged generation, and it's as off-track as any of the others.
 You raised us. May 19, 2008
20 out of 78 found this review helpful
I was going to read this book. Unfortunately I had to update my Facebook profile instead. I did want to mention that Iraq is easy to find on Google map. Its the one that has all the tanks driving around on it.
 That's your best argument? May 19, 2008
20 out of 61 found this review helpful
By that title, I mean to question the negative reviewers. "Your raised us" or "You were too biased against us" are the best arguments you could come up with? That's called blaming and denying, boys and girls. How about owning your own ignorance?
And, btw, have your read the book?
Methinks They Doth Protest Too Much... May 22, 2008
19 out of 31 found this review helpful
I find it telling that the most vociferous complaints here about Mr. Bauerlein's book seem also to be the most cynical and defensive. Historically, anyone (a la the late, great William F. Buckley) parrying a response to a charge of which he doesn't feel guilty has done well to counter such claims with a calm, intelligent, and reasoned rejoinder. In fact, the more erudite and confident the reply, the more credence one lends to his perspective. That said, perhaps some of the statements in 'The Dumbest Generation' bear the need for verification or correction, but attacking them in a way that makes the reviewer sound guilty before being provent innocent serves only to negate one's argument. Members of a smarter generation (of any age) might return fire more effectively by quoting new facts that refute ideas with which they don't agree. Doing so via huffy protest however, seems, well...just plain dumb.
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