Nicer but Dumber

Every year friends will ask me at the start of a new school year, how are the new students? At first it was a joke I would answer with-- nicer but dumber, but you know, it's really true. And what can account for this observation or phenomena if indeed it is true?

I think there are many reasons to account for this and one of the suspects is the internet and the vast entertainment media that kids are continually plugged in to. They are socialized early, with media images encouraging them to grow up, as many of us lament, far too fast.

Now kids have always been social, playing with toys or making up games ever since time began. Today though with reality tv, kids are use to being on display; they can't wait to see their picture on a digital camera and are confused when grandma takes a picture with a camera where you have to develop the film first (what's that?). Shoot video, watch yourself on You Tube minutes later.

I think on the positive side, due to more working parents, more kids are in day care and in pre-school and that this early socialization by all kinds of caregivers results in children learning early how to play-talk-communicate with others, young and old.

Also, as everyone has noticed, children today-- as young as 3 or 4, call you by your first name - a change that took only a generation or two to occur. This use of first names of adults by children breeds familiarity and (possibly) a blurring of authority. My older son is 6 now but at age 4 you could see him at the playground ignoring kids his own age to talk to the teenagers he didn't know or even adults. Today, while the neighbors 3 year old calls me "Paul", I still call my parents friends Mrs. Engstrand, or Mr. Fjelde though I am almost 50.

Dumber? Overall...probably. They come to my 9th grade class with maybe 3000+ text messages written and received in the past year and during that same time, maybe 6-8 badly written essays. However, the ones not carrying around too much baggage or attitude, are really nice, fun students. If I could only give passing grades for personality.