Sunday, September 27, 2015

When you consider what'll happen when(if) these people get out of college

and face the real world, it's kind of terrifying.
Students are increasingly seeking help for, and apparently having emotional crises over, problems of everyday life. Recent examples mentioned included a student who felt traumatized because her roommate had called her a “bitch” and two students who had sought counseling because they had seen a mouse in their off-campus apartment.
Those two actually called the cops.  About a mouse.
...Our students are no different from what is being reported across the country on the state of late adolescence/early adulthood. There has been an increase in diagnosable mental health problems, but there has also been a decrease in the ability of many young people to manage the everyday bumps in the road of life. Whether we want it or not, these students are bringing their struggles to their teachers and others on campus who deal with students on a day-to-day basis. The lack of resilience is interfering with the academic mission of the University and is thwarting the emotional and personal development of students.
And what happens when they don't have a teacher to cry to?  And school-provided "Now, now, it's not the end of the world" to support them?

And this:
• Students are afraid to fail; they do not take risks; they need to be certain about things. For many of them, failure is seen as catastrophic and unacceptable. External measures of success are more important than learning and autonomous development.
Doesn't that sound a lot like the "Doesn't matter if what I'm saying/doing actually fixes anything, I'll be SEEN as a Good Person if I say/do it!" attitude?

Far too many pieces of the future, Deity help us.


1 comment:

Toastrider said...

All too common. One of the things you see in management levels nowadays (private or public sector) is an increasing nervousness over making decisions. Regardless of results, people become afraid of making the wrong choice, so they dither or pass the buck.

Even when a wrong answer is just as useful as a right one, or a decision turns out to be wrong based on later information.