TAKING STOCK OF THE STUDENTS.

Not much changes in two decades.

Outside the Beltway's Michael Bailey offers "Ten Observations About College Students."  Ethnography, if you will, based on an academic year's fieldwork, er, teaching classes at Berry College in Rome, Georgia (where the Andrews Raid might have been fatally delayed by several southbound military extras fleeing Chattanooga) and dealing with the challenges of saying no and upholding standards where part of growing up is pushing the boundaries.

On to the list.

1.  They’ve never been sweeter—and they’ve never been more screwed up.
2.  They don’t read.
3.  They’re not deeply engaged in the classroom.
   
4.  They expect dispensations.
5.  They’re clever—especially as curators of cleverness.
6.  They have a complicated relationship with their phones.
7.  They’re way into conspiracies.
8.  Students and AI are besties.
9.  They kind of love Karl Marx.
10.  Their “normal” is not our “normal.”

Some points rate more elaboration than others.  The longest elaboration is under the first item, and it's troubling.  Some excerpts:

They’re also proud of not being racist, sexist, or any other “-ist” they associate with older generations—including my own. They view their generation as more decent, more attuned to harms inflicted (intentional or not), and freer of bias. Of course, they have their own blind spots, but the general self-assessment isn’t far off.

They’re equally proud of how openly they discuss mental health—especially their own. Many students identify with their diagnoses—whether clinical or self-labeled—and some treat these labels as central to their identity. It’s nearly standard to see personal statements for law or graduate school reference mental health challenges—how they’ve overcome them and how these experiences (or what they might think of as conditions) have given them a unique lens on the world. One student called his diagnosis his “super-power.”

This embrace of mental health language seems to me a mixed blessing. I’m old-fashioned enough to not entirely understand it, and I confess I wish they didn’t cling to the labels quite so tightly. My fear is they may inadvertently limit themselves or find excuses for falling short of their potential. Still, I recognize it’s perfectly possible that real good may come from this way of understanding themselves.

Some of their struggles are quite real even if not rooted in more classic causes such as crushing poverty or racism. Suicide rates among young people have risen dramatically in recent decades, though I’ve been fortunate that none of my students have taken that path. But my sense—admittedly unquantifiable—is that nearly everything feels harder for them than it did for students twenty years ago: getting out of bed, showering, making it to class, finishing assignments. Their dating lives (and perhaps more generally the relationships between men and women) are a mess, and I’ve been struck by how openly contemptuous many women are of the men in their generation—perhaps with justification, though I’m not in a position to say for sure.

The deconstruction of bourgeois norms has been a project of over half a century, and restoring a state of good repair will take some time.  There might be a connection between the mental health language and the expectations of "dispensations" ("accommodations," for those of you who read Inside Higher Ed) in the fourth item.

Students rarely argue about grades—that would require confrontation—but they do expect exceptions and dispensations. I hear them complain about professors (which surely means they complain about me). They treat syllabus rules as negotiable. Essay instructions? Suggestions. Due dates? Starting points for negotiation. Professors who strictly enforce their syllabi are viewed not only as draconian but also vain, old-fashioned, and petty.

To an extent, that's a bad habit his charges acquired in high school, where the only standard is there is no standard, and extensions and re-dos might be a matter of course these days; that might be an impression shared among us Old Curmudgeons.  Whether the younger cohorts of faculty go along with it or seethe is a topic I'll shy away from investigating.

The Marx observation has nothing to do with literary theory or with the transformation problem.

These students aren’t leftists. But Marx’s core message—you are being royally screwed by people with money and power—hits home. Hard. Their response doesn’t line up neatly with either ideological wing.

If they ever channel their meme-making energy into direct action, we may be in for serious social unrest. I sometimes suspect that many students sort of half-want to just burn.it.all.down. There’s rage behind the humor.

Well, yes.  Professor Bailey might be able to keep all things Trump out of his courses. How does a man who has one concept of normal understand a youngster who has a completely different experience of normal?  We have Trumpian politics in part because the Credentialled Classes mocked the Tea Party.

Professor Bailey might even recognize that in his conclusion.

These sweet, anxious, thoughtful, and genuinely loveable students—these students who are overwhelmed by everything except academic reading—know in their bones that their future is deeply uncertain and increasingly shaped by adults who appear to have no idea what they’re doing.

My fear is that they may be right.

So it is when the saecular order fractures.