Don’t you just love the word “nincompoop”? Early in October I read an interesting article in the Chronicle Herald. Written for today’s parents, the question posed was, “Are we raising a generation of nincompoops?”
Every generation says the same thing about its children – they are lazy, no good, disengaged, disinterested and, of course, not very bright. We say these things about our children just as our parents did about us. No matter if you are 30, 40, 60 or 80, you know exactly what I’m talking about and are probably nodding your head.
What is a nincompoop anyway? By definition, it means “fool”. Were we fools as we grew up? Were our parents fools when they were growing up? What about our grandparents? If we were really fools, how did we lose that status and become “informed” or rational people? Was it fools who sent a man to the moon or discovered a cure for polio? And why is it these fools can program my phone but I can’t.
The answer is very simple. We were taught the things of life that we needed to know from the adults around us – parents, teachers, grandparents. We absorbed knowledge through books, television, music and our friends. We learned, as every generation before us, what we had to know to survive in our world. And today’s children will too – eventually.
The article uses everyday examples to support its claim. It states that today’s children are able to tell time solely in digital format and depend on Velcro closures to do up their shoes. I’ll give you a personal example from a typical classroom:
“What time is it?”
“Look at the clock on the wall. What time does it say?”
“I don’t know. I can’t tell that kind of time.”
And I shake my head. What I could do is stop whatever lesson I’m trying to teach and use this opportunity to teach time with an analogue clock. Obviously, they are still used and therefore there is merit in teaching this… But the outcome we’re working on has to be taught and assessed. No time to deviate from the plan. So, I tell the time because it’s easier.
A single mother of two preschoolers has to be organized. As she tries to rush out the door early in the morning, getting the children ready to go is an act she has fine tuned to a science:
“Matthew, please sit still!”
“Mommy, I want to zip my jacket myself!”
“You’re only 3 years old, sweetie…there’ll be time to learn that later….”
Who’s the nincompoop now?
No comments:
Post a Comment