Time for the annual "Boy this makes me feel old" self-flagellation ritual:
The current freshmen entering college who will make up the Class of 2015 have no remembrance of what life was like before the Internet, what this whole Communist Party fuss was about in Russia and that Amazon was once just known as a river in South America.
Ferris Bueller could technically be their dad at this point, and they probably don't know the name of the bar where everybody knows your name.
It's enough to make even those in their thirties feel ancient. It's also part of the annual Beloit College Mindset List, which since 1998 has provided a look at the topics, cultural phenomena and more that will affect the lives of students entering college in the fall.
The College Mindset List was created by former Beloit public affairs director Ron Nief and Keefer Professor of Humanities Tom McBride to ensure the faculty would avoid out-of-touch references in their work and lectures. Compiled at www.mindsetmoment.com, the list has also served to illustrate the speed at which what was once current can become old in an instant.
This year's incoming class has no memory of the George Bush who once famously uttered, “Read my lips: No new taxes.'' To them, he is just the elderly father of the George Bush who famously declared “Mission accomplished!'' on an aircraft carrier when talking about operations in Iraq.
This kind of stuff can drive you crazy. There's nothing more pathetic than newspaper articles trying to appear with it ("with it" -- boy, there's an ancient term) by revealing teens' secret slang that is out of date before the perper even hits the street, er, is posted on the Web.
I saw a perfect example of this on cable (if you remember pre-cable, raise your arthritic hand) the other day, a showing of "Ball of Fire," a great screwball comedy from 1941 starring Gary Cooper and a very sexy Barbara Stanwick. The premise is that there is this bunch of stodgy old professors who have spent years and years compiling an encyclopedia, and this nightclub singer shows up taking in jazzy slang, and they decide their encyclopedia won't be complete without references to things like "a mouse with a nice pair of gams." Did anybody involved with the movie consider the irony of including highly perishable slang in a collecttion of wisdom for the ages? Billy Wilder co-wrote the script, so maybe so.
It's fine to understand the students' cultural references so the lessons can be made more relevant for them, but that can be carried too far. It would be like, well, including a chapter on "current" slang in the Encyclopedia Britannica. Aren't we still supposed to pass along the collection of cultural touchstones that should be constant from generation to generation? Are we supposed shrug off the fact that these kids don't remember Gulf War I at the same time we try to teach them the importance of the Civil War or World War II? I'be been watching the "Jeopardy!" teen tournament the last couple of weeks, which offers proof that the students of today are just as capable of absorbing and learning from the past as any other generation.
