The Entitled

Some of my colleagues were standing around grousing about something yesterday. I joined them and found them complaining about students.

“I can’t believe that these kids have only come to 50% of my counterpoint class! BW just texts during class and it drivesme crazy. When I was in college, I NEVER missed classes.” Another joined in: “I’m having the same problem with my graduate students. Some have missed 4 of 10 seminars.” “My students just don’t read. I assign reading for class and very few of them are prepared.” “I didn’t make my students buy any books so as to save them money during this bad economy. They STILL don’t read.”

I encouraged them to give them bad grades. We went on:

“Why, I remember going home from school every day with an arm-load of musical scores. I couldn’t wait to learn about some new piece of music. Kids today don’t seem to have much of that fire. They do, barely, what is required and not much else.” Another piped in: “I couldn’t believe how unsupportive of each other they are. They don’t attend each others’ recitals. Few of them attend performances of their teachers’ work.” “I rarely see them at new music concerts.”

Is it the fluoride in the water? Were they spoiled rotten by their pampering baby-boomer parents? Or has the autism spectrum widened to include total boredom that doesn’t somehow relate to Facebook, talking on the phone, texting, or partying?

I’m afraid it’s the Entitled Generation.