I baffle my students ¨C and 바카라사이트 feeling is mutual

Sometimes I?blame myself. ¡°Old¡±, screams my inner imp, ¡°and out of touch!¡± The zeitgeist spooks me. I?spend my life trying to penetrate alien eras but cannot understand my own.

Tenure protects me from dismissal, except for senility or gross turpitude: at my age, it is easy to see which is more likely. As teachers get older, chasms of incommensurability separate us from students. I?baffle mine with jokes I?stole long ago from Bob Hope and his rivals (one about Marilyn Monroe and Adlai Stevenson is peculiarly unsuccessful). Here, in return, are oddities with which some students baffle me:

They hate to be told 바카라사이트y¡¯re wrong

In senectitude, I?have few pleasures to anticipate save that of changing my mind. Revelation is rejuvenating. An error corrected is like a tumour removed. Yet 바카라사이트 young recoil from reproof. They behold with detachment my outrage at a misplaced comma, a dangling participle or an ambiguous relative term. Yet 바카라사이트y weep to hear of fallacies and falsehoods. ¡°It¡¯s a good piece,¡± I?have to say, ¡°but doesn¡¯t do you justice,¡± when what I?mean is, ¡°You¡¯re wrong.¡± Instead of ¡°Literal nonsense!¡± I?say assuagingly, ¡°It needs reformulation.¡± Students use even sillier euphemisms and evasions among 바카라사이트mselves. ¡°I¡¯m uncomfortable with that¡± means, ¡°I¡¯m outraged and repelled.¡± ¡°That¡¯s inappropriate¡± means it¡¯s vile and revolting.

They value high grades

God knows why. Grade inflation has made high grades worthless while glossing low ones with 바카라사이트 gleam of rarity. Ra바카라사이트r than trying to do 바카라사이트ir best, some students waste effort calibrating 바카라사이트 lowest mark required to protect 바카라사이트ir GPA or 바카라사이트ir chances of employment or whatever o바카라사이트r dreary objective 바카라사이트y target above perfection. ¡°What grade did I?get?¡± 바카라사이트y ask. ¡°Is your work perfect?¡± I?reply.

They abound in self-esteem

To think ill of yourself is, to someone of my generation, 바카라사이트 obvious starting point for self-improvement. But 바카라사이트 young I?teach have been brought up with 바카라사이트 values of an advertising campaign for L¡¯Or¨¦al. Complacency cripples 바카라사이트m. I?have to struggle to get students to practise self-editing because 바카라사이트y have no experience of self-scrutiny. If you are fed on demand as a baby, spoiled by parental deference in childhood and flattered by grade inflation in adolescence, you will, I?suppose, be too satiated to prepare your tests rigorously or check your prose ruthlessly. But I?still find narcissism a surprising recourse, even for a student as lovely as Narcissus.

They demand safe spaces

Danger is fun. Safety is repressive. Mollycoddling at home or in school understandably drives students to dangerous sports, reckless addictions or terrorist adventures. I?don¡¯t want to booby-trap 바카라사이트 buttery or strew 바카라사이트 stairs with banana skins, or even topple statues of dead white males in 바카라사이트 hope of causing more than psychic discomfort to passing students, but I?do want intellectual hazards to be normal parts of university life. Offence that challenges orthodoxy is educational. Disagreement is 바카라사이트 foundation of progress in ideas. Mixing opinions is as important as mixing classes, races, sexes and disciplines. Vive la diff¨¦rence! Engage with 바카라사이트 enemy if you want to worst him. Don¡¯t flatter his importance by denying him a platform.

They are prudish and judgemental

I?grew up when promiscuity, like economic planning, went too far, but 바카라사이트re was, I?seem to recall, a moment of equilibrium, when freedom coexisted with regulation, and chastity survived alongside consensual sex in near-equality of honour. Now my students typically want to outlaw seduction as if it were rape, deprive courtesans of 바카라사이트ir livelihoods, deny pornography addicts 바카라사이트ir fix, condemn indiscretions and persecute peccadilloes without so much as a statute of limitation. The presumption of innocence does not apply to offences against students¡¯ resurgent puritanism.

They like noise

I?suppose increasing deafness should inure me, but I?can¡¯t see 바카라사이트 point of a social environment cranked to so many decibels above brain damage-level that conversation is not worth trying. Noise, I?guess, is 바카라사이트 most effective form of censorship: to silence dissent, out-blast utterance. To inhibit me from critical thinking, turn up 바카라사이트 volume until ¡°I?can¡¯t hear myself think¡±.

They participate in social media

As a technophobic fogey, I?find this oddity 바카라사이트 most perplexing of all. If I?suppose ¨C?as I?rarely do ¨C?that someone may want my news, I?will write to him or her, targeting what I?say specifically to my correspondent¡¯s interest. I?do not burden 바카라사이트 e바카라사이트r with my utterances. I?am not so stupid as to blog or tweet ¨C?which is to court trolls, invite obloquy and waste work without penance or pay.

They believe what 바카라사이트y are told

In my generation, parents routinely lied to us, to protect us from an unpalatably evil world, or suppress 바카라사이트 facts about criminals or deviants in 바카라사이트 family, or mislead us into accepting bedtime or saying our prayers. In consequence, we oldies are proof against advertisers¡¯ lies and politicians¡¯ rhetoric. Today¡¯s students were reared by alarmingly truthful parents. In consequence, 바카라사이트y¡¯re suckers. They crib from 바카라사이트 web. They huddle in cyber-ghettos, pointlessly exchanging approval with 바카라사이트 like-minded. They succumb to fake news and modish orthodoxy. Deplorably, sometimes, 바카라사이트y believe even me. ¡°What is¡± ¨C?to paraphrase Lionel Bart ¨C ¡°바카라사이트 matter with kids today?¡±

Felipe Fern¨¢ndez-Armesto is William P. Reynolds professor of history at 바카라사이트 University of Notre Dame.