Yes on all counts except creativity. Of the four cohorts in the generational cycle the Mills are the least creative, collectively – they’re actually the most conventional. But you make a number of important points.

I’m glad there are teachers out there who believe in them like you do. As you know, my experience was less happy than yours. I found them willing to be led, so long as you were willing to lead them precisely where they already knew they needed to go. Not true of all of them, of course – no generalization of this sort can be taken as comprehensive – but there was a lot of faith in received notions and very little willingness to question those notions critically.

Obama has tapped into their innate optimism and their belief that they can be powerful change agents, and if he’s elected he will have a tremendous opportunity to put this generation to work making some important changes for us. If they don’t get this outcome, though, we’ll have to see.

Fingers crossed.

This is one of those moments where I am glad to work with students from a small town, blue-collar institution. For the most part, my students are hard-working, diligent, respectful and eager to please. I do see the entitlement, the I-know-more-than-you mentality and the inability to analyze. I see the differences in the generations. Yet when compared to Xers and Boomers, I find Millennial’s offer creativity, enthusiasm, and an awareness of the whole vs. the individual. Above all, I see young, insecure minds that are desperately seeking leaders to inspire them, to show them an alternative. Obama’s campaign resonates with them for this very reason. We are all seeking someone or something we can believe in. So forgive me for sounding simplistic, but let’s act as the kind of professors, mentors, parents and professionals that inspire. Regardless of the front Millennial’s display to the world, they are young. With youth comes uncertainty and insecurity, no matter your generation.

I’m an adjunct and I teach the same kinds of students that are on the video. I think that when you get down to it, the pain they are trying — ackwardly — to express is the pain of their student loan debt.

Two-thirds (65.7%) of 4-year undergraduate students graduate with some debt, and the average student loan debt among graduating seniors is $19,237 (excluding PLUS Loans but including Stafford, Perkins, state, college and private loans), according to the 2003-2004 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS).

My students think constantly about the fact that they will be leaving school with $20K + in debt — for an undergraduate education. Over half my students have part-time jobs in addtion to fulltime course loads.
They are stressed, depressed, and, yes, critical of a system that has shifted the burden of an economy-gone-wrong onto their shoulders.

I think that it’s a national disgrace that students leave college saddled with so much debt. The students might not be able to articulate the source of their pain, so their message in the video is, understandably, confused. But, yes, I agree that given the amount of debt they will carry after graduation, their teachers should know students’ names, should be mindful that each textbooks cost over $100 (even stupid Interpersonal Communication texts), and should try to put themselves in the students’ shoes every now and then. College today IS NOT the same today as it was when we were undergraduates. It has little to do with cell phones and iPods. It has everything to do with an economy gone mad.

He never fails to let me know that I better be nice to him as he gets to choose my nursing home:)

Jeff

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook

Even those who sleaze their way through are demonstrating ingenuity.

Sam, I’m not clear — you mention teaching one year in one comment, and, in another, that you’re still teaching. Was the first situation a full-time job and is the second more like a service-oriented thing?

Last summer, I sat down for dinner with some families that included students attending Brown, Chicago, Berkeley, and Michigan. I found them to be very intelligent, very focused, and I know all of them to be hard working. Two of them, for instance, are not enamored of math or science, but they took AP courses in calculus, physics, and chemistry because, in one of them’s words, “What’s the purpose of even attending school if you don’t get as much out of it as you can?” One of these kids, the one at the University of Chicago, has never failed to take four courses per quarter, which is the maximum load, for that same reason.

So, it’s not ALL bad news. There are millenials out there who are hard working, care about learning, have well-trained minds, and don’t feel the world owes them anything. I don’t know how many there are, but they do exist.

BTW, Kelly, a story about DU. Another young lady I know (not one of the four referenced above) made the mistake in high school of not taking the most rigorous schedule. Though she made straight As, she was rejected from the most selective schools to which she applied, so she attended DU. She was flabbergasted by what she saw there. What she described was what you described, and it was a new experience for her. She told me that her classes at DU were way easier than even her regular-track prep courses in high school (let alone the AP and honors courses), and that the kids there just didn’t seem to give a flying happy about anything but getting an A they didn’t study for and did no work to earn.

She transferred to Vassar and earned degrees in math and vocal performance. She’s currently deciding on a graduate school.

So, there are some Mills who don’t break the mold.

Let’s just hope there are enough.

except what happened last week

its a generation that has enough power to change the world but what do they want to do? download bullshit! get coffee treats in the mail! wear a gold mouthpiece that says ‘upgrade’