Back to School

For thirty-eight years the new year began for me not on January 1 but rather the last part of August (Actually when I first started teaching it was the first part of September but it gradually crept up earlier and earlier.

I drove through campus town the other day and noticed large groups of young people out and about, walking to and fro. I was in Staples behind a man and his daughter purchasing school supplies. She was going into the middle school and the father was bemoaning the fact that some "ridiculous teacher" was requiring 1 centimeter graph paper and Staples did not carry it. I actually kind of agreed with him. If a teacher is going to put something on a supplies list he/she should make sure it is available. They had a ton of stuff. I think it gets more and more expensive to go to school each year. I think her back pack was $80. (Whew)

I used to really like this time of year. New students and a new beginning. Now it is just another time of the month. But what got me to thinking about it was the following list which a friend sent me about the college freshmen who are entering college for the first time. I think you will find it interesting.

How This Year’s Frosh Will Make You Feel Older

The class of 2011 is arriving at campuses all over — and inspiring plenty of professors to wonder why the new students seem younger every year. For a decade, Beloit College has been helping out with its annual Mindset List of gentle reminders of what new students grew up with and what they never experienced.

The list is the creation of Tom McBride, Beloit’s Keefer Professor of the Humanities, and Ron Nief, the public affairs director. The 2007 list is being released today. The complete list, along with past years’ lists, may be found here. Some highlights from this year’s list follow:

The Mindset for the Class of 2011

* What Berlin wall?
* They never “rolled down” a car window.
* They have grown up with bottled water.
* Nelson Mandela has always been free and a force in South Africa.
* Pete Rose has never played baseball.
* Russia has always had a multi-party political system.
* No one has ever been able to sit down comfortably to a meal of “liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.”
* Wal-Mart has always been a larger retailer than Sears and has always employed more workers than GM.
* When all else fails, the Prozac defense has always been a possibility.
* They grew up in Wayne’s World.
* U2 has always been more than a spy plane.
* Fox has always been a major network.
* Women’s studies majors have always been offered on campus.
* Being a latchkey kid has never been a big deal.
* They learned about JFK from Oliver Stone and Malcolm X from Spike Lee.
* China has always been more interested in making money than in reeducation.
* The space program has never really caught their attention except in disasters.
* They’re always texting 1 n other.
* They will encounter roughly equal numbers of female and male professors in the classroom.
* Avatars have nothing to do with Hindu deities.
* The World Wide Web has been an online tool since they were born.

— Scott Jaschik

Remember you are loved. Hugs, jcs