now that I think about it, we were quite the 4T nation for a while (very briefly)

[pbrower2a]

(09-27-2021, 09:38 AM)AspieMillennial Wrote:

(09-27-2021, 05:15 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(09-27-2021, 12:08 AM)galaxy Wrote:

(09-25-2021, 01:20 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: (the Millennial Generation is clearly Civic by now)

I'm glad someone else has noticed this. The Millennial Generation has transitioned during the last few years, and is much more obviously Civic now than it was previously. Of course it always was, but in 2014 one had to look much more closely and carefully to see it. Now it's impossible to ignore. I think the peak Civicness is probably those born between 1988 and 1996 or so. Perhaps the seemingly "stepwise" transition into this turning has stratified the generation a bit. Those born before 1988 are noticeably less collectivist and conformist, while those born 1996 and later are activists, with a general "darker" mood (that is, more cynical and less optimistic, but still just as collective), which might be partly responsible for the fact that wider society still perceives the Millennial generation as ending around 1997 or so (with the incorrect designation of memory and understanding of 9/11 as a generational fault line, rather than what it is, an intragenerational* divide).

It's clear that the 1988-1996 group are the ones "enforcing the rules of the new order." Or, at least, they're by far the most enthusiastic about it.

Except for those born to wealth and privilege, childhood is not easy for Civic children. The important difference between the Reactive youth and the Civic youth is that the Civic youth get more direction and don't see their parents involved in ecstatic religion. The economic and political world that a Civic generation knows in childhood is a mess until it breaks. Maybe I have some explanation of the Gilded Generation that (at least in the North) knew a hardscrabble pattern of childhood but then found that the "adventure" of war became pure carnage that only the conformists could survive. The Gilded took on Civic traits in adulthood, which is awkward. I was born early enough to get to know plenty of GI adults, and few of them suggested that their early years were joyous. They improved themselves and most of the men of the latter part of the generation got the 'soldier' stage right.  

I see much the same division between the early, middle, and late waves of the GI and Millennial generations as you do. The older wave sees the worst, and gets the lesson later -- but it gets the lesson, nonetheless. "Every man for himself" means that most of the world is wrecked. People go collectivist when they see rugged individualism leading only to hardship and failure because practically everyone is broke. They came to trust school and science more than religion. Religion was fine if it imparted some morals, but the Holy Roller stuff was for fools.

I have bad experience with schools and science so I don't trust them. Science is seen as a religion now. Schools are brainwashing factories. Most of the people in my generation who feel alienated and think outside of the box are the people who question the school and mainstream science narratives. The people in my generation who trust school and mainstream science tend to be the people who don't think too deeply at all. It's just this default they trust because of the media.

Value-free education was a fad of the 1970's. Supposedly it would better fit a more diverse society. America is diverse, but it isn't that diverse. What matters more is that people reliably learn certain basics (literacy, numeracy, and a smattering of science, and some idea of how the political system works) with some cultural enrichment. A yarmulke and a bonsai tree do not indicate huge differences in ideas of what one must learn to cope in a world in which one is condemned (or blessed) to be in a minority. But despite the cultural differences, they may have much the same attitudes toward learning, and that makes far more difference than many other divisions.
 

We all have bad experiences with schools, starting with some teachers who might do more good for the world if they were doing something other than teaching -- cleaning houses, perhaps? Education does not reliably accommodate differences of culture (make a word out of the four letters c, t, a, and o and a kid on a reservation near Bemidji, Minnesota might naturally spell "coat" and a Mexican-American kid in Weslaco, Texas might come up with "taco".  A coat is an obvious necessity in Bemidji most of the year, and a taco is a stereotypical item of the local cuisine in Weslaco where one rarely needs a coat. If achievement aligns reliably along lines of IQ as an estimate, then there might be kids with IQ's as low as 70 and as high as 140 for two eight-year-olds less than a month apart in age. The kid with an IQ of 70 is probably reading as one would expect at 5.6 years (that is, barely if at all) and the kid with an IQ of 140 may have started reading before being toilet-trained... and now be reading as one would expect of someone aged 11.2 years, which is upper-elementary or lower junior-high level. Many teachers would like to deny that difference but it is real.

Values will appear in school, and every teacher will push some. Treating education as something desirable in its own is a value in itself. Promoting some mix of competition and cooperation to fit the society that one is in is unavoidable. "George Washington was born this day in 1732" is an inescapable reality on February 22 in America, if not everywhere. I've taught, and I deliberately draw no conclusions from ethnicity. I expect fair play as a norm. I didn't like bullies as a child, and I don't like them now. American kids are going to know the Star Spangled Banner as a predictable norm and "Jeszcze Polska nie zginęła" only under unlikely circumstances, and I would expect the opposite in Poland. 

I'm not going to knock religion as such, but in general most religions recognize certain lore as superstition. Allegedly, religion can improve people, and superstition doesn't. Science is only a tool for discerning some facts necessary for full enjoyment of life. Let's put it this way: science showed us how to make jetliners and build skyscrapers, and a religious tradition twisted into something inhuman commandeered jetliners and crashed them into the Twin Towers. Science can show us how to create hydrogen cyanide as a fumigant to destroy pests, but it is up to our ethical teaching to decide that using that hideous substance to kill 'inconvenient' people is a damnable abomination even if done in the name of the Nation.

If there is trouble in education it is that formal education can easily become the (bad) school-to-prison pipeline or that it is charged to do things best left elsewhere, like psychiatry and social work.