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I teach in a community college, mostly blue-collar students, a mix of ages, races, background, etc. I have been teaching for nearly twenty years in a pretty wide variety of settings, from the place where I am now to the research universities where I did my graduate study to a boarding school and a small liberal arts college.
On the positive side, I find current students to be much more tolerant than in the past. Not even ten years ago, for example, when my lit students figured out that Whitman was gay (which doesn't take long) there were always some people scandalized. Silly, yes, but it happened. Now, the more common attitude is, "so what, he liked guys, lots of guys do."
My current "traditional students" (meaning 18 and 19 years old) also have formidable technical skills, particularly when it comes to research, since they have been Googling all their lives. (However, they're not so good at evaluating the information they find, so that a homepage on Geocities called "Suzy's Little Corner of the Web" is just as authoritative as the BBC or the New England Journal of Medicine.)
Another positive is that they tend to be quite kind and personable, and they appreciate the help and attention we give them. I really like these kids a lot.
There are also some pretty disturbing negatives, though.
The big one has to do with the whole "helicopter parents" phenomenon that is the talk of college campuses now. There are now about as many parents as students at orientation (I would have died a thousand deaths if my mom and dad had come to orientation) and when we do advising, parents tend not just to sit in on the sessions but to make their children's schedules. The actual student is nothing but an onlooker. (This kind of thing is even happening after college--lots of employers report getting calls from parents complaining that Little Billy is working too much and Little Tiffany needs a raise.)
As a result of this kind of infantilizing, the general maturity level now is the lowest I have seen. Issues in the larger world mean nothing, as do deadlines and the specifics of assignments. Students are far more likely now to disappear from a class the moment it becomes challenging. If they don't immediately grasp how to do something, then it's just not important. Besides, it's gotta be the teacher's fault anyway, since Mommy and Daddy have always told them how brilliant they are.
There is also an unconscious but maddening sort of incivility afoot lately. Now, the professor at the front of the room is more or less like someone on TV. Students openly engage in conversation, play with the computers, text their friends, take phone calls, roam around the room, etc. We spend the first couple of weeks of every semester dealing with this.
As I said, I love my job and my students, but I fear for them when I consider the rude awakening the larger world has in store for them.
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