A Reflection on the Dumbest Generation

This book was very interesting and some of the stats were unbelievable...is my generation really this dumb? This is the question I kept asking myself as I read each chapter. This is my generation, I don't remember high school without computers and the Internet and I distinctly remember playing "Oregon Trail" on an Apple 2E in 5th grade. Google and spell check have always been a part of my generation. Can I be this ignorant and passive? Maybe. I did complete lots of community service and worked hard to attain good grades but I like the rest of my peers chose movies and gossip to reading Kerouac and Eliot. "Today's rising generation thinks more highly of it lesser traits." This quote could not be more true. Take the movie Jackass , for example, there is nothing but lesser traits in this movie and the movie made millions not based on new ideas and themes but the ability of the actors to be hit repeatedly in the groin. How do we as educators help to fix it? How do we inspire kids to read and question and come up with new ideas? The challenge at the end of the book is to help fix the problem to stop the dumbest generation from ruining America. "They may even be recalled as the generation that lost that great American heritage, forever." I liked this book although I think some of it my be extreme. As a person of this generation I find it hard to believe that everyone younger than 30 is dumb. And although we may not be reading the "classics" many of the same ideas have been translated into modern stories that kids are interested in reading. I do feel that civic and history are very important to the education and keeping our country growing and educated but I do not feel that the future is as bleak as the author Mark Bauerlien predicts it to be.