When I first started teaching in Fall 2003, I worried that I was too close to my students’ ages. The 26-year-old version of me created obsessively clear boundaries between myself and my students—some of whom were the same age as my younger siblings and knew my undergraduate classmates.
My fear of being considered a peer instead of a professor lessens each year. I hate to think I’m getting older, so it must be that my students are getting even younger, right?
Beloit’s 2016 Mindset List confirms this thinking. These poor freshmen—most of whom were born in 1994 when I was a high school junior—are so young that they’ve never needed an actual airline ticket or a set of bound encyclopedias, according to the report.
Some of my other favorite tidbits about the Class of 2016:
- They don’t remember when Kurt Cobain is alive, if they have any idea who he even is. This is sad to a girl who spent most of her high school years in flannel shirts and Dr. Martens.
- Robert De Niro is thought of as Greg Focker’s long-suffering father-in-law, not as Vito Corleone or Jimmy Conway. I just don’t think the FIL is a bad ass.
- Bill Clinton is a senior statesman of whose presidency they have little knowledge.
- A significant percentage of them will enter college already displaying some hearing loss. Our parents were pretty sure this was going to happen to my generation, you know, with the hair bands and all.
- There have always been blue M&Ms, but no tan ones. Of course, I’m still scared of those blue ones because of the whole red-dye thing from my parents’ generation.
- Simba has always had trouble waiting to be King.
- Before they purchase an assigned textbook, they will investigate whether it is available for rent or purchase as an ebook. Although my students show little interest in ebooks. They like to read and highlight.
- Mr. Burns has replaced J.R.Ewing as the most shot-at man on American television. Who else remembers the Who Shot J.R. campaign? I’ll really date myself by admitting that I remember the cover of that TV Guide.
- Herr Schindler has always had a List; Mr. Spielberg has always had an Oscar.
- History has always had its own channel.
- Little Caesar has always been proclaiming “Pizza Pizza.” But is anyone eating it?
- Chronic Fatigue Syndrome has always been officially recognized with clinical guidelines. Our parents just thought we were tired.
- They watch television everywhere but on a television. My generation did nothing but watch television.
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