College students are a curious breed, but according to an article posted on DailyMail.co.Uk, they are more curious than ever. Just with its headline, this article stakes the claim that “College Students Think They are More Special Than EVER.” How? You may ask. By conduction surveys over the course of forty-seven years, the researchers have noticed a spike in “self-esteem” among the “individualistic” students. When asked to rate themselves among their peers, a majority of students consider themselves “above-average”. This response led the author to consider students on U.S. campuses as a generation with a “sense of entitlement”. This article also suggests that, despite what many education professionals, believe, high self-esteem shows no proven relationship to success. The article even goes so far as to suggest that “encouragement” in the classroom, will only allow “weaker students [to] actually perform worse”.
Although, I feel the dynamics of college campuses has really changed in the last decade, I cannot let myself generalize the populations of entire U.S. colleges. Yes, the results of studies can give us inklings to how the “average” student lives their life; although, in my experience, I have learned that most students are, contrary to what this author and some researchers seem to believe, not-so-average. This article depends so greatly on generalizations that I feel is it addressing its audience in an attempt to scold the reader (and assuming the reader is a college student themselves). If the true data could stand on its own, the writer would not feel the need to group current students as “egotists” and “narcissists”. Through this author’s cold use of language and negative tone, he lost this reader’s attention to the statistical data, and created a personal, and unsuccessful, reaction.
No comments:
Post a Comment