So last week, I was the teacher anon who posted a thread about how young Millennials are basically cancer and destined to suffer as they can't handle inconvenience.
Well, I finally read all of your responses and I was surprised, /pol/, because you bastards were nice about it and really got a good conversation going. So, I'm looking to get something similar going again.
The next few posts will be some new thoughts I've had on the matter, mixed with some storytelling from being the trenches of American public education. I'll include a screencap of my original 3 posts for the hell of it and then see where the discussion goes from there.
Commencing...
>>67415581
Link to original thread: >>66701631
>>67415581
In the original thread, I said that the selfishness of Gen Xer parents has lead to "free range" children who are even more selfish, but in a way so that they are "unaware" of their own entitlement. Many of you were quick to point out that Boomers were also an "entitlement" generation and created the Gen Xers, the original "latch key" kids, and I commend you for that. Because you're right. This has totally by a cycle of "self above all else" bullshit for several generations, no doubt about it.
But I want to add that there are absolutely two more things that immediately sprang to mind when mulling over what exactly makes the Millennials (and specifically YOUNG Millennials, so "Gen Zm" the "Youtube Generation," etc.) unique in comparison.
First, I want to get the big ammo out of the way: smartphones. Smart devices and their ilk have absolutely plagued the younger generation, the point of their own self-destruction it seems. We joke about "the September that Never Ended" and how "normies don't know how to Internet," but unfortunately these are problems society did not stop fast enough. The explosion of social media, or whatever the hell "post-Web 2.0" is called, in addition to the ease of access from mobile devices has brought the Internet to regular people, and at much younger ages than what was seen historically.
Okay, so what does this mean? Well, we've essentially handed young Millennials their own uniquely catered ration of "soma." So much of their social interactions and pleasure is derived from these devices, and it has become an addiction to many. Yes, I sound like a grandpa here, but don't tell me that you have not felt a tinge of dread or the tiniest of tears when your younger sibling puts that phone in their hand and checks out from the world. An entire hugbox of freemium gaming, modular entertainment, and ego stroking at their fingertips.
>>67415581
>>67417649
I have been in classrooms where 12 year old students will argue over who has more "likes" or "followers," and preteens will physically fight one another to get a hold of a device or prevent anything "negative" from being seen. I watched today, even, as a 15 year old boy nearly died of heart failure and injuries sustained from falling in P.E. class down the hall. After everyone rushed to his aid, his first concern was that he had to make a Facebook post about it in extreme detail.
Now, what this young man does with his spare time is none of my business, but he had a near-fatal experience. Why is his primary concern that he have access to his phone so he could blast social media? I get that this is a message to let others know he is okay, but I was slowly becoming disgusted with how quickly the boy was able to move past nearly dying in front of peers once he had that phone in his hand. And the students who liked, commented, and whatever else acted like this was nothing shocking or exciting to them. There was no voice of concern. Only "omg" and "could you believe that? lol" being passed around as this young man himself was never cognizant to the fact he may actually have something fatally wrong with him. Are 15-year olds not phased by passing out in school anymore? Is this now a mark of courage because she can soak up the ego stroking, echo chamber effect of the Internet from this one "lucky" incident? All of the support he's getting is almost sycophantic in a way. And they ALL do it.
I guess a side point, to extrapolate from there, is that this is a generation of false causes and what I will call the "hashtag protest." Just look upon your own social media. How many people do you know who share, like, comment, subscribe, and hashtag causes or events with no genuine intention of true reflection or action for taking up those causes?
>>67415581
>>67417649
>>67418836
Young Millennials bask in the glory that is the false persona created by taking on these causes and interests that never really mean anything. They create this image of themselves online that becomes more important than who they truly are, an avatar. Instas, snaps, kiks, whispers, tweets... whatever. It's the persona they want to be, and they can be as adult, mysterious, sexy, hilarious, or disgusting as they want to be. It's a world unto itself that adults have no reign in. They have their independence, and it runs unchecked.
My friend's 9 year old daughter can't name the Vice President or even recall Obama's first name, but she can tell me her favorite Youtube celebrities' real identities, their entire backstories, and "Top 10 Balloon Brands You Should Avoid." It's all she does with her spare time anymore: watch, like and share videos, and absorb half-a-minute/check-your-brain-at-the-door level entertainment. She was born in it. Raised by it. She doesn't know anything else.
In a way, it's almost like the individual becomes the corporation. A conglomerate of what we might call "ideals" or "mission statements," but in the end it's still all bullshit that just exists to get more credit for itself, whether it's actual capital or just fucking followers on Instagram. How poetic that this is now the corporate driven world, where corporations are "individuals," and now we have children who are individuals acting like corporations.
Giving accessible and simplified internet to these young Millennials has produced a false sense of celebrity, an extended "15 minutes of fame" that they are convinced will always be just outside of their reach. I'll admit I had aspirations of being Internet famous or just famous myself, but reality got a hold and I realized how unlikely that was going to be. Unfortunately, seeing the faces of Youtube, Tumblr, and wherever else has only reignited the fervor for these kids, again and again.
what do you teach anon? One of the social sciences?
>>67415581
>>67417649
>>67418836
>>67419050
One final story I will share before I go quiet for a while:
I was at a parent teacher meeting for a freshman, 14yo girl, who is not doing well in most of her classes. The meeting was typical fare for the teachers. We tell the family she doesn't her homework, it's clear she never studies for tests, and we wonder what goes on at home.
The father dejected most of our complaints, stating that he can look up his daughter's grades any day of the week and wanted genuine feedback on her well-being.
Of course we asked him and the mother what they exactly meant, as we described how she acts in each of our classes.
Apparently, at home she shares little about school. At the end of the day she comes home, usually ignores her parents, and goes to her room to play on her phone or watch Netflix. Whenever the parents try to ask her what she has for homework or if she wants to come down and socialize, she screams and throws tantrums. The parents can't handle her and the mother started to cry at this point, saying she "never wanted to be the bad guy" to her daughter.
We offered our input, but one of the older teachers wisely said, "this sounds like a family matter, that unfortunately we don't know what to say that will solve it for you."
Her parents' faces became ones of disgust. The words, "what do I send her to school for then?" actually left her father's mouth in response to this comment.
We got an earful about her being tested for anxiety disorders, how for the past 10 years schools have failed to "fix" their daughter.... Basically, we were told we weren't "doing our jobs" as teachers.
It's the music.....force them to listen to the Bad Luck 13 Riot Extravaganza.
>>67415581
>My friend's 9 year old daughter can't name the Vice President or even recall Obama's first name.
>Ugh, I hate it when 9 year olds aren't into politics, little fucking retards.
Have you ever thought that maybe its just kids being kids. No humans have ever been as advanced as we are now, the technological/social environment kids grow up in today is unprecedented so we cant predict the end results. Sure, they might be vapid but the world outside school hasn't changed much, once kids are out of the education system they'll realise no one cares about them unconditionally and they'll grow up.
t. Young millennial
You know OP you sound like the autistic teacher no one likes.
>>67419050
>>implying trump supporting on 4chan isn't the exact same thing you describe
>>67420456
The entitlement and lack of ownership for responsibility surprised me. I suppose the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, if this is how her parents view how they should raise their daughter (push everything onto the system), but unfortunately her story is not all that uncommon.
Our school offers the following to families and students, no joking:
>a dental hygienist
>two full time nurses
>a school health center with a full time PhD and nurses
>two social workers
>an occupational therapist
>a school psychologist
>6 special ed case managers
>a work based learning coordinator for students and parents
>several faculty who speak multiple languages
>ELL/ESL classes for families
>babysitting for student parents and parents who need it
>five school counselors
>a marriage and family therapist
>a financial advisor for families
>a career specialist for parents
>night school for parents
>free or reduced meals for kids
>free breakfast for students
>free homework groups every day after school
>additional free bus transportation until 5pm for students who are running late
>a full-access automotive shop for families to have their cars worked on by students
>a full-access restaurant and cafe for families to get free meals cooked by students
>perks and preferences for parents working for our school as custodians, secretaries, etc.
>free hair styling and makeup for parents done by students
>several fully funded community events
>a free laptop to every student
>investment counselors for families
>college tuition assistance for parents and students
>free Internet access for families
When the fuck did it get so bad we had to provide all of these things? And I absolutely did not even hit everything -- I just got tired of listing shit.
>tl;dr Parents no longer take responsibility for their children. They WANT the system to raise them. They BEG for the system to take the responsibility away from them.
>>67421081
Ha, you wish
>>67420302
Science
>>67420758
Their taste in music is fine
>>67420833
Valid point, but don't you think we should hold her and her peers to a higher standard?
>>67421275
do you work in a public school or a private school?
>>67420456
Yup. This planet is doomed.
Ty for sharing anon
>>67415581
I'm not reading all this shit.
>>67421444
A few points
I am not sure how highschool is for the classes you currently have but for us college aged millennials we remember it as regimented, and boring because we were already oversaturated by our social media usage and disinterested in the classes we forced to take.
Everything short of AP classes were superficial and largely forgotten by the time we got to college.
It's just like the generation in China that fell in with the "Great Leap Forward," and destroyed their own History and culture, rebuked and disrespected their parents, (or worse) destroyed priceless artworks and artifacts and manuscripts and temples and even their own family heirlooms and carefully kept family records going back centuries.
We can bewail the hundreds and thousands of years of priceless History and culture that was lost. But we should also look to how that culture contributed to it's own demise.
That generation of Chinese kids were raised to be the young men and women that they were by their parents. Their parents were raised by THEIR parents. And so on.
What they taught their children and the way they taught them is what determined how and what the children learned, and that gave them their values. Period.
A culture only degenerates to a certain point before it automatically . . . radically corrects itself.
This is going to be extraordinarily bloody. And I'll tell you, some of the most prepared will die right away, and some of the least prepared will just "Forrest Gump" their way through the most incredible death-defying situations and end up surviving. Still better to pad your numbers by preparing, but mostly you should be ready to run out the back door in the middle of the night with your boots in your hands and heading out for the hills.
>>67423230
This is certainly an issue. Kids are so overstimulated outside school that it must seem like a waste of their time. What can they learn that wikipedia can't teach them?
>>67424484
Forget schoolkids, that's true for 90% of college students.
>>67419050
So.. i liked the rest of your posts.
But this thing got me
>My friend's 9 year old daughter can't name the Vice President or even recall Obama's first name
Why the fuck should she. this shit is not relevant for her, Obama is an old decaying piece of shit when she can vote anyway.
>>67421275
Are you in Texas? Like north of Houston Texas.
He tried to warn us of the hyperreality
>>67424756
difference is that we or our parents are paying for college education, adding an incentive for success and a punishment for failure which does not exist as acutely in highschool
In highschool if you fail you see kids going lol guess I get to hang out with my failure friends an extra semester.
Mostly the crowd that doesn't expect to go to college has this attitude but it rubs off on others
I'm pretty sure getting pissed off at little brats is part of the teacher's job since motherfucking Charlemagne.
Do you need me to call an excavation team to dig all that sand out of your pussy?
So last week, I met this 18 year old kid, definitely male, that plows snow in the winter, tows cars when needed, rebuilds diesel trucks as a hobby and works full time at night, 12 hours a day as a heavy equipment mechanic.
>>67421275
Holy fuck that government bloat, no wonder every western country is broke
How do you not "handle" inconvenience? If you're inconvenienced you're forced to handle it or face the consequences. Inaction will not make the inconvenience go away. It's inconvenient I have to pay 15,000$ CAD after I graduate this year, but not paying it back will cause my interest rates to rise. It's not like we get a free pass.
>>67420456
The school system is responsible for bad parenting now?
Just nuke my shit up
