https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/nation-wimps/201510/where-did-colleges-go-wrong
The author of a book title A Nation of Wimps and the author of an Atlantic article entitled The Coddling of the American Mind had a conversation bitching about young people in academia and put it in Psychology Today. That probably suffices as a tl;dr of the article, actually. I wonder how long I can go without accusing them of projection.
“We both recognize that the critical thinking skills expected of education are the same habits of mind that are instilled by cognitive therapy and which help manage psychological distress. What does the huge rise of anxiety and depression on campuses tell us about what’s going on in college and maybe even the wider culture these days?”
Ready for an answer about how there is a multifaceted reason for this, including the massive existential demands placed on the youth of today, the proliferation in diagnostic and medical interventions, and the intertwining of these and the government healthcare system, or maybe something more speculative like the massive shifts in religious affiliations or recession-related economic anxieties?
“Western society has transitioned from an honor culture to a dignity culture and now is shifting into a culture of victimhood.”
Those aren’t even things, are they? *Checks Wikipedia* Nope. Thought not…
“The past 20-30 years, however, has seen the rise of a victimhood culture”
Yeah? It’s a new thing? Never had that in the past. Sure. I’m sure there’s good data backing that up…. Read this today, relevant to my point a bit: https://reason.com/archives/2015/10/13/blame-boomers-for-todays-pc-culture
“You always appeal to a third party to punish for you.”
Uh, I think that’s been the basis of the legal system going back to at least Hammurabi. Back in your day, you put the burglars in jail yourself, huh?
“Young people are becoming morally dependent”
That… that isn’t even a thing.
“they are also less able to solve problems on their own”
Unlike the old days, when a single champion would fight on behalf of the group. This is why WWII had so few casualties.
“An adult has always been there somewhere to protect them or punish for them”
Unlike the old days, where the adults never intervened in anything. Lord of the Flies was actually a historical event.
“The shocking part is that colleges are abetting the infantilization of students.”
This is the flash of insight that should have shifted the focus of the entire conversation on how the people in charge are massively dropping the ball. I kept reading to the end to see if they’d ever pick up on it. Oh well.
“For example, they sponsor ‘puppy days’ so that students can pet dogs to relieve the—oh horrors!—stress of exams. It sounds so innocuous but providing such Pooh Bear crib comforts is flat-out capitulation to weakness.”
Maybe I’ve been getting too deep into politics, but… I think she hates puppies. I mean, literally, I think that’s not an unfair interpretation. Also, lmao, the website imbedded a link on “stress” to articles they have on stress management. Those wimpy kids and their stress. 10 ways stress is bad for you. 5 ways to get rid of stress….
Much more seriously though, how the fuck is this a bad thing? What about the literally hundreds, if not thousands of depressed and anxiety young people who wash down a full bottle of their Xanax with some vodka so they don’t have to wake up for their exam or anything else ever because (at least in part) of the massive and almost certainly disproportionate importance they give to academic success. “I can’t do it. I’m a failure. I’m a disappointment. I’ll never be able to achieve my dreams.” Exams can sure as hell reinforce those thoughts. There’s a line between motivating stress and suicide-inducing stress. How in the absolute fuck is dispelling some of that a bad thing? And the puppy days are honestly a brilliant way to do it. It shifts your perspective. It reminds you that there’s more to life than what you’re obsessing over in school. Hey, maybe you can get a dog of your own sometime pretty soon. A loving companion to share life with for a dozen+ years. There’s a life after college to live. Also, come on, what kind of sociopath doesn’t like puppies?
“There are three reasons why colleges are doing this.”
This isn’t a real critique, but it irritated me to no end that I didn’t get the list up front. I get it, it’s how conversations work, but it’s nails on a chalkboard to me.
“One is the increasing consumer mindset that sweeps through many institutions in market-based societies”
Yeah, God forbid the people who took out loans they’ll be repaying for a decade to go to college get any leverage whatsoever on the product they’re paying for. Greedy little bastards.
“I don’t have the trust and respect of my students as much as I did 20 years ago.”
And it couldn’t POSSIBLY be you.
http://cdn.athoughtfullife.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/children-who-are-wrong.jpg
“On first meeting me, students address me using my first name rather than Professor, a sign of familiarity”
https://i.warosu.org/data/tg/img/0392/00/1428451366388.png
If I find out that you sign your emails or any papers, etc. using your first name, I will hunt you down and kick you in the shins, Jonathan.
“A more important change is that universities live in terror of lawsuits”
I’ll give him that that’s an issue affecting the quality of, well, everything.
“Most professors are horrified by trigger warnings and microaggressions”
Actually, I think most don’t know what they are. But I’m sure those in the know find them tedious.
“It’s happening at most top schools that lean heavily left.”
Nota bene, academics, who lean very disproportionately to the left, do not see themselves as such. Only those elitist east coast schools really lean left….
“It’s happening at the University of Michigan, and that’s a big state school.
JH: But that leans heavily left. So does Berkeley.”
Even when his buddy calls him out…. Look how fast the facts change to fit the preconceived notion. U of M, which is no more left-leaning than every other major state University, is now on par with left wing metonym Berkeley.
“HEM: Are some first-tier schools literally making themselves into 10th-tier schools?
JH: No, because prestige follows its own logic.”
Really? “Literally”? Dude, that’s something you actually could hold against the young people.
“I’m hoping that as public disgust with the infantilizing schools rises, market forces will save us”
Read: I dreamed that God would be forgiving. This is a serious comment from a psychoanalytic perspective. It can’t be him and his profession that has to change themselves, an outside power beyond any individual’s control will do it for us, hopefully.
“enough parents will hesitate before applying to the crazy schools.”
U of M is now a crazy school? Someone went to Ohio State.
“Some schools will be able to differentiate themselves as havens of free inquiry.”
If the youth are corrupt and consumer-focused, why would this happen, then? Won’t the young people gravitate towards the coddling, “crazy schools?”
“I have my hopes on the University of Chicago, which has issued a spectacular policy on freedom of speech, saying basically it is not the university’s job to take sides. Students can say whatever they want.”
Yes, the University of Chicago came up with the idea of a right to free speech.
“Among the disorders rising on college campuses is self-harm. Some people in charge believe it reflects acting out because students can’t articulate their distress.”
Yeah, calling them coddled wimps is helping, I’m sure. Curious, though, why the suicide rate then has been stable among the youth demo but is massively increasing in the middle age demographic:
http://www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2008/baker-suicide.html
“Acting out is truly regressive behavior. Are trigger warnings and safe havens preventing students from learning how to articulate their distress?”
Are not the demand for trigger warnings itself acting out/regressive behavior? And if that behavior is being suborned, doesn’t that mean universities are facilitating this regression?
“A core idea is Nassim Taleb’s notion of anti-fragility: Certain things in this world are anti-fragile—they get tougher the more you bang them around.”
God makes bad things happen to make us stronger. The argument predates the black swan guy, but unnecessary jargon and name dropping add much-need ethos to the discussion.
“We’ve taken all the challenge out of it”
YES!
“in the mistaken assumption that our kids should be happy all the time.”
GAH! Right, it’s the kids’ fault parents suck. You misspelled “because we are terribly insecure and neurotic and don’t have the faintest clue how to challenge our kids in meaningful ways. So we hope that college will do it. And when that doesn’t work…”
http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2008/10/the_dumbest_generation_is_only.html
“How did we get to the victim mindset a decade later? Is it just the trajectory of market-based societies?”
Right, it’s not a generation of narcissistic parents, and incompetent parenting; it’s not your fault; God did it.
“But as nations get wealthy and women get educated, birth rates plummet and each child is prized.”
So colleges suck because parents actually love their kids now, as opposed to the past where parents were indifferent to the wellbeing of their children?
“Another thing that happens in the culture of affluence is that people overestimate the amount of control they have and feel compelled to exert control more, including over their kids.”
What?
“Do you think the University of Chicago’s declaration of free speech is enough to counter all of these really big forces?”
Or do you think it should be bigger? Do we need, like, some sort of national law that protects the freedom of speech? I’m not saying a Constitutional Amendment, necessarily. But maybe if some states adopted a resolution?
“Until the federal government grants universities freedom from fear of lawsuits, not much can be done”
Okay, I want to shoot lawyers as much as the next guy, but come on dude, that’s a cop-out if ever there was one.
“But the problem is not exclusively with universities; it starts before students arrive on campus—in elementary school and at home.”
Burn it all and make some substantial changes? I’m listening.
“One thing that has struck me is a huge judgmentalism among parents pushing them to overprotect their kids. Parents are afraid that if they don’t, they’ll be criticized by other parents or a neighbor. It’s a powerful moral force.”
Parents caring about what other parents think of them, and not what is best for the child is a much, much larger indicator of the problem. That’s the narcissism. Wanting other people you don’t really care about think you’re good instead of wanting what’s best for your kids is narcissistic, and yeah, that is probably a systemic cause of a lot of this.
“Psychologists could play a leading role in helping parents and schools think about what children really need, and how our well-intentioned efforts to protect are often counterproductive.”
“Moral judgment is not about finding the truth; it is more about broadcasting the kind of person you are to people that you want to like you”
Yes. And where are the young people learning that behavior from…?
“For the past 13 years, since I began documenting the increasing psychological fragility of college students, I have been part of Bringing Theory to Practice (link is external), a largely academic group taking steps to counter high rates of distress by fostering academic and civic engagement on campuses. One thing they do is offer grants to schools to test innovative programs. What more can people be doing?”
http://deadhomersociety.com/2011/04/14/quote-of-the-day-757/
“Parents need to be encouraged to raise their kids with some independence and experiences that help them learn from setbacks.”
This is a sensible comment, yet also incredibly facile.
“Kids need to learn how to address insults on their own.”
Uh, they try to, but there’s this thing now called zero tolerance that the adults put in place…
“I would change the freshman reading list.”
Highschool or college. I agree either way, but if this guy is advocating for a college freshman reading list…
“If we really want students to learn how to get along with other people who hold diverse views, they should read Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People.”
I have no response to that.
“And I would strongly discourage using first-year readings to focus on racism, sexism, and anticolonialism.”
OMG yes, thank you. I’ve been saying this since middle school.
“A steady diet of such books draws students into the culture of victimhood and anger.”
Oh f–no it doesn’t. What it does is bore the absolute shit out of kids who don’t relate to it at all, which just turns them off from school and reading in general. Enslaving black people is bad. Yeah, I got it. Haven’t done it; don’t plan on doing it. Can I read a Star Wars book now? Right, genocide is bad. Cool. Not really into reading another book about the holocaust. How about this science magazine? No? How about we let the kids read literally anything that they find remotely interesting? It’d be a monumental improvement.
“I like your idea of good old-fashioned debates. They force people to tolerate ideas they don’t necessarily agree with and process a range of ways of thinking.”
Students debating in the safety of a moderated environment overseen by a teacher who knows them? Awesome, let’s do it!
“I would arrange for every student to see the play Hamilton, or a film of it. A highlight of the drama is a debate between Jefferson and Hamilton articulating their radically differing views of human nature and government for the young country.”
I’m a pretty big history and government nerd. I’ve read books on Hamilton, Jefferson, the Constitutional debates, etc. but even that sounds boring to me. Way to take a great idea and just kill it so quickly. It’s impressive, really. How about we let the kids debate something they find controversial?
“There’s a basic tension between pursuing dynamism and decency.”
Those also can’t possibly be things.
“In talking to you, I’m suddenly realizing that we have the same issue in the college community. Focusing on decency—it’s called inclusivity—is valuable. But is that all we should do? Should we also focus on dynamism, encouraging students to think in new ways, to take risks, to say things that other people might not like?”
This was a reasonable sentiment made worthless by the addition of completely unnecessary and what is I’m pretty sure fake jargon.
“When I was growing up, multiculturalism was all the rage and you were supposed to learn about other cultures, and even wear clothing from other cultures. Today that’s a microaggression: It’s called cultural appropriation. How are kids supposed to learn about other cultures if they can get their heads bitten off for saying a word in Spanish or for wearing and article of clothing associated with another culture?”
Valid point, but are the colleges leading the charge on this? No. They’re enabling it, possibly, but the question you’re supposed to be asking is “why?”
“Yes, experimentation is one of the great expressions of expanding minds. Switching topics slightly, the beauty of a program that inculcates good habits of mind, like CBT, is that it protects you whether stress is generated internally or externally. Without such mental skills, you perceive stress everywhere, which seems to be the case today among college students.”
CBT isn’t working on that ADD, I see. Don’t worry, one of the kids will give you some Adderall.
“Actual dangers and threats can be going down while anxiety and disability can be going up.”
Are those related though?
“People learn from feedback from experience, and a lot of that experience has to be negative.”
Sooo… what, we should go back to corporal punishment?
“Fear and sadness and disappointment and frustration feel bad when they are happening but are essential for growth.”
Hahahahahahaha! If universities had honest mission statements?
So, uh, okay, I think you guys missed the part where you answer the prompt. I read that whole thing and got very little in the way of insight as to where colleges went wrong.