Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 96
 The Current Prisoners In Plato's Cave June 7, 2008
Stanley H. Nemeth (Garden Grove, CA United States)
98 out of 124 found this review helpful
This is an astonishingly insightful book. The fact that it has not so far garnered avalanches of commendation on this site suggests to me the dunces of our age, comfortable with the present scheme of things, may be in confederacy against it. Its thesis is that the generations since the 60's have become increasingly self-absorbed and therefore sadly unfit to maintain a democratic society. For requisite intellectual combat, the young of our time lack both a liberal education and civic knowledge, essentials for the preservation and advance of the American experiment in government. The villain here, as Bauerlien presents it, is manifestly NOT technology itself. He is no Luddite. Rather, he pillories the increasingly eager self-absorption of the young in mere private social life, and the peculiar eagerness of Boomer mentors to approve such juvenility. Technology itself, after all, does not require that the young text message DURING college classes or fake bathroom emergencies to take cell phone calls. For too many of them, the highest and only reality is peer group interaction. The rest is blah, blah, blah.
In his early chapters, Bauerlien happily provides even more hard evidence of the mediocrity of current youth culture than the most strictly defensive parent, teacher or journalist might require to become alarmed. In his summarizing words, "a parent, teacher or journalist who doesn't see the problem would have to be blind." The young these days, by and large, are ignorant of beneficent tradition. Even the pen of a Jonathan Swift would be challenged to report on them, since what he could satirize as worst case behavior in his time has become pretty standard in ours. He mocked, it will be remembered, several town wits referring to an obscure author called Homer and had them in dispute as to whether there had actually ever been any ancient writers or not, the present moment being all.
Bauerlein, I'm happy to report, does not follow his scientific analysis with a plea of impotence. He argues, instead, that adults in all spheres must speak out to reverse the order of things and encourage youth to see that adulthood rather than a Peter-Pan like endless adolescence is the desideratum. The young, by nature, do desire to be older. One has only to ask 5 1/2 year olds their age and they'll chime 6, to a person. That 25 year olds will say they're 21 is the greater problem in our time.
Freeing the young from Plato's cave has always been an uphill battle. Are there adults today, Bauerlien asks, who are willing to take the risks?
As a card-carrying member of the dumbest generation, I endorse this book. January 18, 2009
not4prophet (North Carolina)
17 out of 19 found this review helpful
Mark Bauerlein begins his book by quoting an article about the frenzied, high-stakes world of American high school students. Students are pushed to succeed like never before, forced to spend their every waking minute in intense studies. Parents and teachers lean over their shoulders, brutally forcing them to ignore all leisure activity and focus solely on the goal of college. It all adds up to a nonstop barrage of academics that consumes are childrens lives, stresses them out, and even ruins their health.
The only problem with this analysis is that it's completely wrong. As anyone who's been in a classroom recently can testify, today's students have very light workloads. They refuse to do homework. They simply won't study. They care about their social lives, not about academics. This is the reality of the situation. If anecdotes won't prove the point, real research will. Bauerlein provides that research, citing multiple, large studies by universities, government agencies, and other reliable sources. The results are clear. We have raised a nation that lacks basic knowledge of math, science, history, English, foreign language, and civics. Today's young people are not only weak academically, but also unable to use their leisure time productively.
Bauerlein spends one chapter establishing that fact. The rest of the book is spent shooting down the various responses to it. Response one is that technology inevitably makes our kids smarter. Yet the facts just don't justify it. America has spent seventy billion dollars to bring technology into the classroom, yet our students continue to fall behind. Schools in other countries remain focused on the basics and easily outperform us. For all the political jabber, there's no reason to put so much faith in computerized classrooms.
Response two is that our children are shifting to a new type of learning, where the old rules simply don't apply. Kids don't need to know Newton's Laws or the Bill of Rights any more, they just need to know how to look things up online. This theory is a recipe for disaster, as Bauerlein points out. The human mind must think and decide with the information it has. The mere presence of information online doesn't guarantee that people will use that information. Moreover, technology by its very nature works against deep-seated intelligence by breeding short attention spans. This is not merely an old person ranting about all this new stuff. A research group at Apple has spent years researching how people process online information, and they confirm the results.
Response three is the most sinister. Some commentators don't really mind that our kids are getting stupider. They view education itself as oppressive, and think that new tech-centered living will be more liberating for humanity. While few would say so in as many words, many people have allowed this attitude to creep into their thinking. Bauerlein calls this "the betrayal of the mentors" and he hits it hard in the last two chapters.
Bauerlein's book is at war with a rival work of commentary, Everything Bad is Good for You by Steven Johnson. I reviewed that book last year and reached the same conclusion that Bauerlein does. Johnson's thesis is wrong because his definition of intelligence is wrong. Children need to learn more than rote problem-solving skills. They need a meaningful education that motivates them to become better people. Without that, our nation is in for a long cultural decline. The signs are already starting to show up.
An excellent analysis with frightening implications on the dumbing down of the young generation through new technologies! June 4, 2009
Emma H. Jackson (Evanston, Il)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
Aristotle said that a life of gratification of desires and impulses is debase, and contrastingly a life of contemplation is the most virtuous life. As a member of the Dumbest Generation (not an active member, just in the age cohort) I would like to concur that unfortunately the life of gratification has become more appealing to my peers because of new technologies.
Baulerien emphasizes that absorbed in new technologies the Dumbest Generation (i.e. tweens, teens, college students) excessively immerses themselves in diversions in their leisure time, rather than using leisure time to acquire more knowledge, engage in civic activities or become more cultured. He provides statistics that support the claim that the Dumbest Generation devotes much more time out of school to screen activities -t.v. and web-rather than reading. Moreover, museum visits have dwindled amongst the Dumbest Generation.
Through my high school and college experience, I've noticed that my peers were primarily focused on their future careers (hence just passing classes), updating their boring, ugly photos on Facebook and tweeting the mundane, minute happenings of their lives. It's no surprise that most couldn't find the value in reading the newspaper or sitting at the library for a couple of hours to read a classic. Surely, they can cite a line in a Kelly Clarkson song, but watch their faces quickly turn pale when you ask them something as basic as which party controls Congress.
Bauerlein elucidates the repercussions of the Dumbest Generation's absorption in new technologies. The history, civic and fine arts knowledge levels of the young is quite low and more leisure reading could boost that knowledge. However, new technologies (facebook, blogging, twitter, etc) has made the young more concerned with petty trivial adolescent concerns, rather than with higher concerns, such as facts of the past, art and literature. In the final chapter he warns that an uninformed, apathetic citizenry threats the sustainment of a healthy democracy.
Bauerlein debunks the idea that the young generation has a new kind of higher intelligence. He distinguishes extensive technologic know-how from general knowledge of the past, classics and civics understanding. Uploading a picture on facebook is not that difficult. The web is mostly a stimuli-experience, such as listening to a song on itunes or watching a music video on youtube. On the other hand, being able to write a coherent argumentative paper does take skills and many high school and college students, lack basic writing skills. Bauerlein provides facts that debunk the claim that reforming education simply lies in installing more computers.
He argues that the web offers an array of information to become more knowledgeable, but kids are not using the web for that purpose. New technologies have made it easier for the young to skimp on the responsibility of storing knowledge in their heads. I was surprised that my grandmother could recite an entire Robert Frost poem. I told her if I was to recite her that poem I would have to look it up on wiki and then read it off the screen.
Bauerlein puts a lot of blame on the dumbing down of the young on technology. What is his prescription? He urges for the mentors to rise up and protest against youth ignorance and apathy. In the "Betrayal of the Mentors" Bauerlein explains the dangers of the teachers that emphasize giving control control of the learning to the youth (i.e. the learner center approach), rather than teachers transferring knowledge of the past and classics to students (i.e. the traditionalist approach). Ultimately, the learner center approach leads to less informed individuals with less rich opinions. The young cannot have rich opinions if their ignorant of the great classic and major historical events, but are well informed in who won American Idol.
Of course technology makes it easier to engage in pleasurable activities, but ultimately it's up to schools to foster inquisitive minds. By fostering inquisitive minds the young may start questioning their values and take responsibility for the well being of their lives.
Bauerlein should have more thoroughly emphasized that education needs to be more about cultivating inquisitive minds and less about passing to get an A. More tests and papers should be assigned throughout highschool and college to make sure students have an understanding of the constitution, history and classic. Also more papers should be assigned that thoroughly demonstrate a students ability to prove a thesis. Too much time is wasted on class discussion and group projects.
Since it's up to the individual to start questioning their values to change their behavior, perhaps a required introduction in philosophy course in high school could replace the required P.E. class. The teacher can explain Aristotelian virtue ethics class, What will benefit me in the long term devouring hours on the web or sitting down and reading a classic?
Overall, this book is a must read for everyone and especially to the young, if they are not too busy tweeting!
I weep for the future May 17, 2008
Gordon Ewasiuk (Washington, DC)
113 out of 150 found this review helpful
Sixty-three percent of test takers couldn't find Iraq on a map??? Fifty-two percent of high school seniors picked Germany, Japan, or Italy as allies of the United States in World War II? Are you SERIOUS?
A well-documented, reasoned look at America's Dumbest Generation. The author pulls no punches. He isn't out to insult or deride -- rather, his points serve to highlight and emphasize the severity of the problem.
Highly recommend.
In later chapters, the author delves into how "The Dumbest Generation" came to be. One point stands out -- the contemptuous view of history and tradition. The author documents a case of a young aspiring artist who not only does not know who Michaelangelo or Rembrandt are -- BUT DOES NOT CARE.
I can only take this book in doses before having to put it down. The author talks about how today's society is more focused on information retrieval versus knowledge formation. He demonstrates how today's society can multi-task and do a lot without actually learning a lot. Test results are sprinkled throughout to support the author's points.
An insightful, eye-opening book.
A generation of declining intelligence...and people who don't want to admit it! December 4, 2008
Nikki S. (Texas)
14 out of 17 found this review helpful
Excellent research - gives a grim-but-true picture about the decline of academic intelligence in Generation Y. :-(
Lots of valuable statistics which can be lengthy and difficult reading at times, but I still give this a five star review because I don't know how the author could have prevented it. Without all the information, you wouldn't understand the problem, and the author would be heavily criticized (probably by the same reviewers who gave him low marks already) for not backing up his statements with research.
I am one of the under-30 crowd, but I'm objective and informed enough about my own generation to agree with the author. I am also an educator who can't believe the lack of expectations parents & other adults have for some of the kids I teach. If a child doesn't know basic multiplication facts at age 13, his parents should have enough common sense to trade his video games in for a deck of flashcards until he does (but instead they say, "well we just can't get him to practice."). When a sixth grader plagiarizes a research paper from Wikipedia yet is able to spend hours a night on MySpace instead of doing the work herself, there is a problem. And furthermore, when her mother isn't even fazed by her behavior, tries to make it seem like no big deal, and even jokes about the infraction later....its tragic. These are just two of numerous situations like this that I have encountered in the last year, and it indicates to me that this generation is hands-down the dumbest, because the adults of previous generations have low expectations or are too caught up in their own lives to care.
And the scariest thing is that this type of behavior is now the rule, rather than the exception. To all the reviewers who are blaming schools, funding, etc., try working in the field before you criticize it. The author is dead-on in his evaluations that kids spend more time with their gadgets than they do improving their minds. The schools have no control over how kids spend their time. The funding has nothing to do with getting kids to actually do their homework and pay attention in class. This book is a wake-up call, to every adult, that we need to do something, anything, to change the current trend and get kids to embrace the privilege that is education. Its for their own benefit!
THE DIGITAL AGE IS NOT THE CAUSE OF THE PROBLEM...THE CAUSE IS THAT KIDS ARE OBSESSED WITH IT AND NOTHING ELSE!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 96
|
