EXPO 1213 Blog

Coming into the class, I never really thought about generations too much. Rather, I just considered it a way to classify a large group of people around the same age. However, after spending time thinking about the concept of generations, it became clearer that while it is a decent way of referring to an age range, classifying individuals by generation is often problematic. It’s not uncommon to attribute the negative of a certain individual to the whole group who fall into the same generational classification. For example, anytime an older generation says “kids these days.” They normally have a negative connotation and are very easy to over-generalize.

If I were to retake this class, I think it would be interesting to focus on the rapidly changing environment and social norms of the younger generations. Considering, arguably younger generation lives in a completely different world since they often spend significantly more time online. This very often creates a large social disconnect between younger and older generations. This very often creates a lack of productive conversation.*Did not get to finish*

When looking at the attendance rates of young men in higher education, it is fair to say that young men are enrolling/dropping out much more frequently than young women today. What are the common tend relating to the decrease in college attendance among young men? What strategies may help decrease the gap between young men and women? These important questions need to be addressed to ensure that young men are not left behind.

Through the research process, I am looking the find articles/studies that may help develop my research guidelines however, as of now these are the current guild lines for research that I am looking for. Information from case studies of high school students and their plans for college that displays the differences between young men and women. Whereas empirical and psychological studies will be more useful in the quest for a solution to the problem. Other interesting research may include how father figures are consistently portrayed as lazy idiots on popular television series and how that may have an effect on male students’ psychology and how they look at school—finally comparing and contrasting the different studies to extract methods of improving the current enrollment situation with young men.

Kleinfeld, Judith. “No Map to Manhood: Male and Female Mindsets Behind the College Gender Gap.” Gender Issues, vol. 26, no. 3/4, Dec. 2009, pp. 171–82. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.ezproxy.lib.ou.edu/10.1007/s12147-009-9083-y.

Judith Kleinfeld is a professor of psychology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She specializes in boys’ issues and has created the Boys Project, an international organization of researchers, policymakers, teachers, and parents concerned about boys’ problems. Judith Kleinfeld explores the possible reasons why the gender gap exists and looks at the difference in mindset between young men and women. Kleinfeld found that young men often saw higher education as an extension of high school rather than an investment in their future. In contrast, the opposite was true for young women. I will mostlikly comparing Kleinfelds suggests with finding from other paper that I have yet to discover. Kleinfeld suggests that universities make an effort to get young men more excited about college while considering the mindset of young men. She suggests professors allow for more movement during class to better tailor the learning environment to young men though that there were a other few suggestions.

“Where the Boys Aren’t: Non-cognitive Skills, Returns to School and the Gender Gap in Higher Education.” Economics of Education Review 21.6 (2002): 589-598. Web.

Brain A. Jacob from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy school of government to which I can only persum he is a professor. In this paper he seeks to determine if cognitive factors effect the rate of college enrollment between men and woman. He concluded that mostly non-cognative facts carry the most weight and it is not a question of ability but rather something else. Thought it is possible that results are squed due to other limiting factor such as difference in school and the requirements of each individual school district. I will mostlikely be working with sections 3-7 of Jacobs paper where he discusses determining factor for males and females in college enrolment and life after postsecondary schooling.

Buchmann, Claudia, and Thomas A. DiPrete. “The Growing Female Advantage in College Completion: The Role of Family Background and Academic Achievement.” American Sociological Review, vol. 71, no. 4, 2006, pp. 515–41, http://www.jstor.org/stable/30039008. Accessed 17 Apr. 2022.

Still unsure about this source, not sure where it would play a roll in my research paper.

For the research paper, I will be exploring how the rate of young men going to college has been decreasing over the years. The paper will cover the education system and how education has and hasn’t evolved into the 21 century. With the purpose of finding a possible answer as to why we are seeing the ever-decreasing number of young men going to college. The research will cover possible reasons as to why it happening and ways it can be fixed.

In chapter 3, “Quit Recycling the Past,” Andy describes his experience at an Alcoholics Anonymous group. Andy says, “AA members want to hear the horror stories of how far you’ve sunk in life, and no low is low enough.” This experience led him to implement storytelling in his own life, following the same rules as AA. Such as no interrupting or criticizing. Upon implementing storytelling in their lives, the three friends shared everyday experiences allowing the character to develop more self-awareness. Storytelling can be a powerful tool to bring people and communities though it is a fleeting art form. Benjamin attributes the demise of storytelling to the rise of the novel. Speaking from the perspective of Generation Z, I cant see this as being overtly evident. Storytelling can come in many forms like novels, TV shows, internet videos, etc. Suppose the point of storytelling is to share experiences with the reader/listener. In that case, you could consider almost any form of sharing what is perceived as important information as storytelling. However, Benjamin does make a valid point if you look at an older generation like the Silent Generation or the Greatest Generation. Usually, people from these generations can tell stories all day long without a second thought or lack of content. Whereas younger generations like Millennials and Generation Z tend to lack stories to share because they are constantly being inundated with information in their daily lives. When the younger generation finds themselves surrounded by silence we tend to seek out ways to fill the silence. Older generations did not have this option as easily growing up. Benjamin’s analysis of how people become good storytellers, he attributes this art to the presence of silence.

The story starts in early summer while Sam is working construction

The typical day for Sam included waking up at 5 am to make it to work. Sam had some pretty simple tasks at work and never really was given too much responsibility. His typical day consisted of picking up trash at construction sites, lawn work, and building fences. However, when Sam arrived to work on Monday at 6 am sharp, he was tasked with picking up construction material and hauling them to the right construction site. Although Frank, Sam’s boss, didn’t know Sam had never towed a large trailer before. Sam had no experience pulling trailers. Sam decided it was best to keep that to himself until the job was completed. Sam didn’t know that he would be driving through 5 o’clock traffic with a hefty and wide load. Sam decided it was for the best to jump headfirst into a new experience and trusted that he had the skills necessary to complete the job safely. So he began his drive to pick up the required materials. Nothing special happened on the way, thankfully. Instead, it gave Sam time to get used to pulling a large trailer. When Sam finally arrived and began loading the materials onto the trailer, he noticed that they started to load the trailer unevenly. However, just like before, Sam didn’t say anything because he didn’t want to insult the people loading the material. Once the couple tons of materials were finally loaded and ready the go. Sam began the trek back with the poorly loaded trailer. As soon as Sam left the parking lot, he instantly noticed how different it was to pull a trailer at max capacity. Everything became less responsive, the breaks, the gas pedal, even the steering wheel. This worried Sam quite a bit because he knew he would be merging into heavy traffic that could come from 60 MPH to a dead stop in seconds.

When Sam finally came to the highway, his blood was pumping, and he knew the pressure was on. Given that any mistake he made could injure even kill someone if something went wrong. Keeping that in mind, he merged onto the highway and began the trip to the construction site. To Sam’s surprise, he made it just a couple of miles from the construction site with no problems. Until finally, he heard screeching and saw sparks flying. The back end of the trailer had broken a weld. Luckily, he was close to the site, and people could come with the correct equipment to get the trailer the rest of the way. However, Sam was still worried because he would have to call and tell his boss. He knew instantly he would have to tell his boss he had no experience pulling a trailer. To Sam’s surprise, his boss knew he had no experience but just trusted him to be careful and use common sense. Even though Sam had no confidence in himself, his boss had confidence in him. From that day forward, Sam accepted more responsibility. Remember that sometimes you just have to throw yourself into something new and trust yourself enough to figure out new things.

Freedom is the single most important aspect of being American. Yet, Americans are constantly giving up freedoms for safety, or even something as small as convenience. There are those who seek to take freedom from others and those who strive to defend freedom. We must not allow freedoms to be stripped away for any reason. Life without freedom is no life worth living.

What’s considered to be a “classic” is rather subjective. The classics of one generation are not the classics to other generations. When I think of a classic TV show I think of shows like Seinfeld. Seinfeld is a show that no matter what generation you are from you will have heard of it. Whether or not you have watched it, know someone that watches, or it has just come up in passing conversation. This show is the perfect example of cultural heritage because it was selected by society purely by the viewership rate which kept Seinfeld on air on television for 9 years with a new season per year.

Today, Seinfeld is still watched on popular streaming services like Netflix. Netflix reported back in November of 2021, to have 2.7 billion minutes of viewership, 595 million of which was from Seinfeld. This show is a piece of entertainment that brings people from different generations together and gives them a common interest. This is important because, when people from different generations share a common interest it shrinks the so-called “generational gap” shrinking the difference between generations. The importance of “bridging the gap” between generations is paramount in maintaining social cohesion in a society.

When comparing generations the same flaw tends to repeat in most conversations. That flaw is an overgeneralization of people that fit into a specific generation. It is impossible to talk about a group of people and speak in absolutes. The typical thought about the younger generations (usually from older generations) is that they are all lazy and have no work ethic. Another common generalization about younger generations is that we lack moral values. Both of these examples are true for a fraction of every generation to ever exist. However, that doesn’t mean that a whole generation can be written off for the short cumming of the few. A good modern example of this is when older generations see people that make a living on social media whether it’s youtube or a plethora of other options that exist today (Menand 6).

The most recent example of generational thinking in my life currently is about a close friend of mine, let’s call him Jack. Jack would be considered part of generation X. Jack’s life has been absurdly hard, from things he has made conscious decisions about and things that he had no control over. Some people would look at Jack and call him a whole slew of different things like lazy, addict, selfish, and more. However, Jack has constantly been told by people that he looks up to that he was “fuck up” or good for nothing by parents or “loved one.” However, this is not the guy that I know and this is the perfect example of overgeneralizing a situation by speaking in absolutes. Currently, Jack is coming off pain pills because the people he turned to while feeling down led him down the wrong path because he felt like he couldn’t turn to his family for help without being ridiculed. This is not something that he would have done if he wasn’t constantly being beaten down by those closest to him. The man I know and my family know is the guy that would bring flowers to my grandmother every time he saw her and constantly bring food and flowers to her while she was laying on her death bed. That is the man I know not what the man that others write him off to be.

When the pandemic first started it was nerve-racking and confusing given the little information we had about the disease. Two-week lockdowns turned into months and the months turned into years. The idea of locking down to protect those who are vulnerable was a thoughtful idea. However, the way in which we responded arguably had a much more detrimental effect on the youth of society. During the pandemic, we saw skyrocketing mental health problems in younger generations as many were forced into isolation. I would consider myself lucky as in the beginning, I went to stay with family so I wasn’t completely isolated. I used this time to become a better student and focus on mental development instead of physical development. In my experience, the early stages of the lockdowns became a time of self-reflection and emotional development. For me this time was invaluable. Now, knowing the statistics and death/hospitalization rate I firmly believe that we can no longer be scared of covid and can no longer rationalize lockdowns and mandates of any kind. The widespread availability of vaccines and proven therapeutics is why we can no longer stand for sacrificing the younger generation for the older. This is not to say that we shouldn’t protect those who are vulnerable. However, we can not protect the vulnerable at the expense of the non-vulnerable.