Best Graduation Speech Ever? Teacher David McCullough Laces Into Selfish Generation Kudos Mr. McCullough.
Is he the son of the historian of the same name? If so, he's simply stealing his dad's line, which generally starts with "these young whippersnappers..." and continues into oblivion. I respect the man (Sr.) as an author and historian and consider him personally to be an arrogant blowhard who thinks previous generations--particularly his own--were exceptional simply because they were previous.
I don't know if he is or isn't his son. I just saw the message on the news and liked it. Arrogant or not, it's the truth. I don't subscribe to the notion of previous generations are better just because they came before, but the sense of entitlement today is terrible. I do think that we have regressed since my grandfather's generation. They have been called 'the greatest generation', and I have a hard time arguing against that.
i struggle with this myself. Every generation has been of the belief that the next generation was too entitled, too lazy, etc and was going to ruin the world. Either we are going downhill consistantly as a world for hundreds of years or it's our imagination. on the other hand i see a world that seems built around putting our kids in bubble wrap and never subjecting them to any adversity and i can't see good things coming from that. how many rules are based around the .5% of people who might be offended, yet the rest of us must deal with them? as an example i recently toured UCLA's maternity ward and a notice on the elevators saying that on all jewish holidays and on sat the elevators stop on every floor. now this is a big hospital. so every person has to wait for the elevator to stop on every [uck fay]ing floor because 1% of the patients MIGHT be orthodox jews and be religiously unable to press the button? so we [uck fay] the 99% instead of having the 1% simply say "hey can you hit floor X for me?"
it's considered work which they cant' do on the sabbath or during holidays. they also aren't allowed to turn off and on light switches. some hire gentiles to do it for them which IMO defeats the purpose (not that anyone has asked my opinion).
Good questions. I tend to feel the way that you do. I'll give you another example: While I do believe that every child deserves the best education that fits them, we are spending an inordinate amount of money on the lowest 3% that (this sounds cruel, I know but it's true) will never hold a job above menial labor. We do next to nothing for the top 3%. It's like society is watering everything down to avoid hurting anyone's feelings. I can't count the times that a regular special ed student (not severely handicapped) has 'graduated' and within a couple of months, they are arrested for various crimes. Their parents have come to the school to get a copy of their Individualized Education Plan (IEP) thinking that will get them out of the charges. They do this because while they were in school, they learned that they could hide behind their IEP which severely limits any punishment if any at all. All they have learned is that they aren't responsible for their behaviors. They also learn quickly that they can't pull the IEP card in the real world. Our society is headed the way of Kurt Vonnegut's short story, Harrison Bergeron, where society is brought down to the lowest common denominator to prevent any hurt feelings. It was written with the intent of knocking communism, but perhaps the danger isn't that outside threat, but it's the threat of not wanting to hurt anyone's feelings that comes from within is equally destructive. Harrison Bergeron
Reminds me of some Amish types that I have seen that refuse to use a tractor, but they have no issues using a modern hay baler that runs off it's own gas engine justifying that by pulling the baler with a team of horses or mules.
Speaking of entitlement, the school I interviewed for yesterday has not cut a baseball player in 4 years. They have tryouts, but every single player makes the team. That right there is proof of the society we live in today.
Cut a bad player and deal with them and their parents once. Keep a bad player and deal with them and their parents every day.
no doubt. back when i was in junior high we had classes called a, b, and c for english and math. A for the best, c worst. you get the picture. these days the parents would probably sue because you were bullying their child or something.
It is illegal to separate based on ability today. It's very rare to have a separate special ed class. Inclusion is the way. My first degree was in special education. Seeing the way it is ran, I went back to school for another degree. I no longer could support what was being done, and those kids deserve better than that. I think my history of posting shows that I'm not a cold callous person, but what I am about to tell may come across that way. It is not my intention at all. I simply want to relate what's going on today. Inclusion (special ed kids in regular classes) can be a great concept if utilized properly. It helps in socialization skills, and the general idea is for those kids to learn from their peers. However, haphazardly applying this concept is disasterous for all. There's a severely mentally handicapped young lady in our school that attends regular classes instead of a CDC (severely handicapped class) 3 out of 4 classes. She is wheelchair bound, needs assistance in eating and is in diapers. It's heart breaking. If I were guessing, she functions on about a 1-2 year old level. She constantly is blurting out 'poo poo, again' or 'pee pee again' or something of that nature. Yet, 3 out of 4 classes she attends with regular students. When I say blurt out, I mean loud enough to be heard several classes away if the doors are open. Are we really doing this child any favors? She is forced to go to academic classes (english, math, history, etc), and be subjected to concepts that she has no hope in comprehending. It makes it nearly impossible for the teacher to teach and the other 34 students to learn. Are we doing justice to the other 34 kids in the class? It's going to take the parents of your B and C level students (the majority) to raise immortal hell and file lawsuits because it is this demographic that gets less focus in terms of policy and expendatures per student than any other group, yet they are the majority. It's crazy policy. No wonder we struggle with educating our children. Our focus is totally screwed up. If the general public were well educated on where funding and focus were concentrated, they would riot. Again, my goal wasn't to be cruel or uncaring. I feel deeply for these handicapped kids, and do what I can for them. But, I'm convinced that the system that's supposed to be helping them is causing them and others more harm than good.
What's truth, that everyone under the age of [insert age of person holding opinion] is selfish, immature, and inferior to everyone over the age of [repeat]? The sense of undeserved entitlement for some of today's generation is terrible. The sense of undeserved entitlement for some of the people of DM Jr.'s generation, or DM Sr.'s generation, or John Adams' generation, was also terrible. I'm not sure in which area you believe we have regressed since your grandfather. It certainly isn't science, medicine, agriculture, wealth, transportation, communication, plumbing, or internet access. I think you probably mean something like attitude, or work ethic, or whininess, but that's a pretty big assumption on my part. I would add, though, that if it is one of those areas, it is fairly easy to underestimate the number of lazy complaining jackasses in previous years and to overestimate the percentage that category occupies in the current vintage.
Heard a talk recently that with the exception of communications there haven't been any significant innovations to speak of in the last forty years or so. Certainly refrigerators and cars are more reliable than they used to be, but it terms of "life-altering" innovations there have been only a handful. He also mentioned that high school graduation rates haven't changed since the late 1960s. This is just an aside. I do think that with each generational change there are things gained and lost, and it's not a bad thing to reflect on those things. What my grandmother was able to do in a day boggles my mind. I couldn't do half those things without requiring a nap. And that generation -- at least in my experience -- didn't have to incessantly talk about how hard life was. They just got up in the morning and did it. I can't say that about a lot of the twenty and thirty somethings I know.
The first paragraph is totally off base from my intent. Your assumption was more in line with the point I was trying to make. I am fully aware that there have always been laziness and entitlement feelings, and those issues aren't going to disappear. However, the prevalence of such attitudes have increased greatly compared to when I started teaching 18 years ago. Perhaps I did a poor job in being more clear in making my point clear, but I think you're reading more into my intent than is there. Either way, the fault lies with me because of my lack of clarity.
Year after I graduated high school we had a coach come in who adopted a similar philosophy. The difference was he worked their asses off in preseason and the ones who could stick it out made the team. Great coach too. Wish he had been there a couple of years earlier.