For some reason, adults like to ask young kids “What do you want to be when you grow up?”. I suppose most are expecting an answer like astronaut or fireman. More likely today they would get a response like TikToker, influencer, or reality TV star.
Instead of that meaningless question, maybe ask them something more complex: What do you find interesting? What problems in the world would you like to help solve? Which of your talents would you like to work on building?
The New York Times recently published a report on two studies showing that young Americans are “anxious about their lives, disillusioned about the direction of the country and pessimistic about their futures”.
Which is hardly surprising considering the behavior exhibited by most of their national “leaders”. As well as much of the news media.
I’m always rather cautious of major media outlets writing about trends among “young people” or telling us about whatever is hot in whatever the up-and-coming Gen-something is.
No matter how old they are, taking the behavior displayed by a select group of people and extend that to millions in the same demographic, age range, or area of the country is difficult at best. At worst, it leads to unreliable generalizations and stereotypes.
Have you heard? The “metaverse” is coming!
Or maybe it’s already here. After all, the company-formerly-known-as-Facebook changed it’s name to Meta last fall in order to “rebrand itself as a forward-looking creator of a new digital world known as the “metaverse”.1
How much homework should students be required to do every night?
In his column this week, Jay Mathews is outraged at the commonly-repeated number of 2.7 hours. He claims the amount is currently more like an hour a night, after “an inadequate average of five hours of class a day”.