Bauerlein & Howe

I really enjoyed watching the Book TV discussion between Mark Bauerlein and Nate Howe about the perceived differences between generations.  The discussion centered upon Bauerlein's more negative perspective of the Millennial generation and Howe having a much more complimentary opinion about that generation.

Both authors have interesting perspectives.  Bauerlein discusses the critical need of high school students to develop skill sets during their teenage years.  He suggests that high school is the primary time when students develop a lifelong knowledge base and judgement skills.  He views technology has been a hindrance to the social development and academic development of students.  Evidence was provided that identified Millennials as having more access to technology but not showing gains from it.  In addition, student social norms were identified as being horizontally influenced (peers) instead of influenced vertically (adults).

Howe discusses how the Millennials have a different mentality and can not be compared directly to the older generations.  He addresses more cognitive factors that are related to Millennials being high achievers.  The interesting evidence provided includes students now perform exceedingly difficult tasks that involve multimedia and require higher order thinking.  The personality of Millennials may be in conflict with the older generations due to Millennials tendency to be consensus-building and less interested in authenticity.

It thought that this discussion was beneficial in several ways.  Firstly, I thought that the discussion was an excellent example of appropriate argumentation and students could learn from the debate structure.  Secondly, I think that this represents a good example of how culture and perceived ability can often interfere with our judgments.  Both authors had very valid perspectives about the Millennial generation.  Lastly, the discussion makes me question whether the form of Socratic inquiry is really beneficial for the younger generation because the context of the questions are not the same as it was 50 years ago.  During that period there were many unknowns about many topics but those topics were still discussed.  Now, the same topics are covered but with much more confidence of what is known.  I wonder if education could move past asking questions about the introductory material and move to questioning about the unanswered questions, like education of the past.  This presents several problems, can students learn effectively without the Socratic learning methods and can the students build their knowledge enough in high school to be able to ask those inquiry based questions.  I believe both debaters had valid examples of positive and negative uses of technology.  Socially, technology may cause a much less structured development of judgments within students and cognitively, technology may be developing a new set of cognitive skills.

I think that the use of a video as a way of exploring ideas could be used very beneficially, but the purpose of the technology and the assignment must be specific.  Technology may aid in increasing academic abilities but only if students are taught how to use it appropriately.  I think that I could use science videos as a way of better illustrating ideas that involve controversy, and debates, like this video, could be used to show appropriate argumentation.

Sorry for the long post.