Generation Y

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

That is exactly the result of the "everybody wins" mentality. The kids subjected to it growing up don't associate effort with reward, or failure with consequences. The actual answer for that kid, of course, is that he can get a better grade if he takes the class again and tries harder, but in his mind, he deserves a blue ribbon just for participating, so that solution would seem dumb and unfair to him.

[Roly Poly Oly-Garch]

Gah...this thread's gonna make me go diggin in the blog.

Another trait that popped out from that conversation, was the "If I am dissatisfied with the answer it is simply because I have not stated the question in the proper way. Obviously you do not understand the uniqueness of my situation."

[Nephew Twiddleton]

That is exactly the result of the "everybody wins" mentality. The kids subjected to it growing up don't associate effort with reward, or failure with consequences. The actual answer for that kid, of course, is that he can get a better grade if he takes the class again and tries harder, but in his mind, he deserves a blue ribbon just for participating, so that solution would seem dumb and unfair to him.

Yeah, reading that kind of maddened me.

It's like, dude, what do you expect? You couldn't be arsed to do the work, and now you want me to fudge you, not just a couple of points, but two full letter grades? When I don't even have the power over that? Fuck that.

Now, there was once in my high school years that my Pre-cal teacher fudged me two extra points so that I would pass- otherwise I would get kept back. But he realized that my D- wouldn't make a whole lot of difference whereas my F would have. And I didn't ask him for it either (he was a young teacher and was otherwise friends with me and my friends. Really didn't see that one coming, lol). And of course, that was the teacher, who wouldn't have given it to me if it was a 55. If the teacher/prof says "this is your grade" you don't go and bitch to someone else who can't do anything about it.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Gah...this thread's gonna make me go diggin in the blog.

Another trait that popped out from that conversation, was the "If I am dissatisfied with the answer it is simply because I have not stated the question in the proper way. Obviously you do not understand the uniqueness of my situation."

Oh god.

The whole, I'm right, but just need validation thing. 

[The Good Reverend Roger]

BUT THIS IS ME!  I'M THE MAIN CHARACTER!
\

[Cainad (dec.)]

That is an infuriating exchange... But speaking as a member of the Everyone's A Winner generation, I can say that if there was some magical ass-pull way to raise the grade, even if it involved doing a lot of the real work he should have done in the first place, he'd probably do it without complaint.

The thing is, even if we realize that we aren't entitled to succeed, there is this notion of entitlement to a second (or third, etc.) chance. There's less of the urgency to get it done right the first time. "Don't worry about screwing up, because you'll get a chance to do better later."

Which is, of course, horsecock.

[Juana]

Speaking of being flat out given grades, my teacher, RIGHT NOW, is basically offering everyone a good one no matter what.

[Cain]

One of my consistent favorites was the belief that there's always a way to get there from here

You can notice that a lot outside of an academic setting, too.  For instance, military policy.

It's tempting to blame that kind of thing on videogames, since with a videogame, you can always, eventually, win. Unfortunately, in real life, you may make a losing choice and not realise you've made a losing choice until well after the point it can be rectified in any meaningful way.

However, since I see a lot of people in their 40s and 50s with this attitude, I think it is probably not a generational thing.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

One of my consistent favorites was the belief that there's always a way to get there from here

You can notice that a lot outside of an academic setting, too.  For instance, military policy.

It's tempting to blame that kind of thing on videogames, since with a videogame, you can always, eventually, win. Unfortunately, in real life, you may make a losing choice and not realise you've made a losing choice until well after the point it can be rectified in any meaningful way.

However, since I see a lot of people in their 40s and 50s with this attitude, I think it is probably not a generational thing.

No, I think that's the result of monkeys living in a universe that was not set up with their convenience in mind.

[Kai]

This whole thread, especially the talk about the Millennials, reminds me of the book Mindset by Carol Dweck.

After researching why some people fall apart after failure and some people pull through, the author discovered and described two basic mindsets, the fixed mindset and the growth mindset.

The fixed minset sounds almost exactly the way the Millennials are described in this thread. They generally receive heavy praise for "talent" as a child, and start thinking that skill is something a person is born with. They do not pursue things that they "naturally" good at, and when they fail at something they take it as a sign to give up. I'm not saying that people with a fixed mindset aren't smart, because they usually are, generally excelling in grade school without much effort. But they give up easily on things they feel they aren't good at.

The growth mindset is opposite. People with this mindset generally receive praise not for talent but for process (e.g.: "I really like the way you went about attempting this problem"), so they think that skills are things that you have to work hard at to have. They tend to see failures /and/ successes as challenges for improvement, and will even pursue projects at which they fail often. Smarts are seen as something earned rather than given. The other hallmark of a growth mindset is that when these people get depressed, they work even harder to make themselves feel better. The fixed mindset makes people do less.

I most definitely fall in the fixed mindset, and I was born on the cusp of the millennial generation (1985). I can't remember a time I couldn't read, never had trouble with studies in early grade schools, and was often praised for being "smart" or "genius" or "talented". I took failures as a sign I shouldn't continue on a particular path, and wouldn't try something I felt I wasn't good at unless goaded constantly. For example, the guitar did not come easily to me, and once I discovered that it was a trial and tribulation to get me to practice. This sort of cycle has repeated constantly throughout my life because I would spurn challenges in things I thought I wasn't good at. When I get depressed, I give up. Learning about fixed versus growth mindset was really a revelation for me, because I started thinking about the real problem, that I didn't see my failures as challenges, that I saw failures as FOREVER, the last word on who I was as a person, and that my successes were only a result of some innate talent I had no control over.

That's the other thing. "Talent". What a load of hooey. All my worthwhile successes in this life have been massive undertakings of work and toil. If it doesn't seem like that, it's only because my passion for science has made it seem easy. I have no talent, and I've been kidding myself that I did in an effort to avoid real challenges. And guess what? Neither did Michael Jordan.

[hooplala]

One of my consistent favorites was the belief that there's always a way to get there from here

You can notice that a lot outside of an academic setting, too.  For instance, military policy.

It's tempting to blame that kind of thing on videogames, since with a videogame, you can always, eventually, win. Unfortunately, in real life, you may make a losing choice and not realise you've made a losing choice until well after the point it can be rectified in any meaningful way.

However, since I see a lot of people in their 40s and 50s with this attitude, I think it is probably not a generational thing.

Personally, I blame it on Kirk cheating on the Kobayashi Maru test...

[Cain]

Actually, that does make sense, and fits the timeline.  Fucking Kirk...

[Roly Poly Oly-Garch]

That is an infuriating exchange... But speaking as a member of the Everyone's A Winner generation, I can say that if there was some magical ass-pull way to raise the grade, even if it involved doing a lot of the real work he should have done in the first place, he'd probably do it without complaint.

The thing is, even if we realize that we aren't entitled to succeed, there is this notion of entitlement to a second (or third, etc.) chance. There's less of the urgency to get it done right the first time. "Don't worry about screwing up, because you'll get a chance to do better later."

Which is, of course, horsecock.

Yeah, I don't think this particular student was looking for me or anyone else to do anything explicitly scheisty, just having a very difficult time with the concept of finality. There's a D, it's on my transcript, I need a B--therefore there has to be some solution...and to be honest, I saw several instances in which there were opportunities to un-fuck what has been fucked. In this particular instance, though, the instructor said the grade was final, there would be no make-up work or whatever, and that was just not something that could be grasped by the student.

I've noticed that Boomers and Millenials are much more likely than Gen-X to "can I see your manager?" when they don't get the answer they like--makes them in many ways much more effective at getting shit done, but in many other ways, annoying as a piss-trickle.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I do really think that my generation got gutpunched into feeling like  there was nothing we could do, outside of sabotage. And you have probably noticed that many times when my generation has taken action, it has been in the form of sabotage. Wikileaks, for example.

[Triple Zero]

And yours is GenX, right Nigel?

I'm 1980 which is just between neither but I can recognize more of the GenY traits in me than GenX, I get the feeling.

But honestly, you might as well describe my personality from my starsign (Virgo), it's all so fucking general, the events that supposedly "shaped" genX or genY, you can find examples 10 years earlier or later and rewrite them to apply differently.

When I read the descriptions of GenX or GenY, and especially GenY, I get the idea I'm reading a horoscope, like it could apply to anyone.