Thursday, August 5, 2010

My Assumptions Once Again Remind Me to Get My Head Out of My Assumptions

The old broad is ranting again!  education, academia, the younger generation, and OMG I'm my mother - all wrapped up in one.

Don't ever tell me astrology is a hoax - the only thing that can explain my stubborn idealism is that I'm an aquarian.  I'm 60, have no computer training whatsoever, literally finger picked my way around computers and the web and I can do more stuff and comprehend more hows/whys/whats than the 20 year olds I'm talking to who have been around computers all their lives!!
This is the second major pedestal tipping in my lifetime of my obviously over exalted beliefs in education and academia.


For years I was literally in awe of anyone with a college degree.  Surely these people were the cream of the intelligent Americans, the smartest of the smart.  My regard took a major nosedive after working in an office with about 30 people who all had to have college degrees to be hired for particular positions.  Idealist me commented one very frustrated work day on the lack of comprehensive reading ability among these degreed folk - how did they ever get thru college and all the books that had to be read?  Two of the vaulted individuals dared me to ask the BA's and BS's in the room if they had ever read a book cover to cover? How many books they read in college? Since college? In the last year?  Talk about shock therapy! If I remember correctly, 2 or 3 were the total of people to have read a book cover to cover, none of them read a full book while in college (all cited "lack of time"), none could really remember "reading much" since college and only 1 had read a book in the last year.  These people so killed my degree envy, much quicker and cheaper than self esteem therapy.

Now I find myself facing another disappointment.  Once again my assumptions are far fetched and fantastical - almost belonging to the scifi fantasy fiction of the 80's.  I take it for granted that recent high school graduates, people in their 20's, college students, etc., can step up to a computer and play it, if not like a fine tuned guitar, at least close to a kazoo!!  Dumb a** me thought "aha, access to young folk = access to more computer knowledge".  So sorry.  If it's not downloading a video, or playing some sort of game, they have very little usefule computer knowledge that I can see.  So far, in my experience, most of them never use (and didn't even know it was there) the advanced options on search engines (major crawlers or site specific); have no knowledge of html or any of the other codes used to create content (don't know how to find a page's code, can't write any type of code, have no idea that you can sometimes tweak code provided); are, like, totally, surprised at the idea of legal share ware, or free ware of excellent programs from the creative to the elementary; and way, way, too many of them profess to "not writing that well" and/or "don't really like to read that much" (which seem to equate to anything longer than a couple of sentences), so they really don't use the international communication possiblities; their laptops are constantly stalling out while they give you blank stares when queried about disk cleanup or defragging; and after downloading (they know that button!) and clicking on every "neat" looking thing or site they run across, they just "can't understand" how they got that virus/spyware/crummy cookies. 

I'm sorry folks, but I really thought that a generation raised on and with computers: 1 - would have some basic computer knowledge that would enable them to find and communicate with like minded folk everywhere be it art, music, comic books, model kits, sports, gaming, etc. 2 - make research fun and easy, with images and videos even for the non-readers 3 - with international communications available, international communing would be common place 4 -  everyone would have a "site" or "pages", pretty much as a matter of course, cheap and easy constant access for communication, "tweaked" or personalized by the owner to suit their life style.

To end this rant - insert small scream here "eeeek" & "omg-omg-omg", insert laugh, sniff, laugh, then, "I'M MY MOTHER!" ranting on about the "younger generation" = uh ohhhh.

 

1 comment:

timary said...

This is what is so great about living right now - the playing field is totally leveled. You don't need a fancy degree or pedigree to learn what you need (or want.) It's all out there available on the net for anyone with the self-discipline to look for it. I too am rethinking my views on college being a 'requirement' - I don't think it guarantees anything any more (if it ever even did.) Great post!