*WARNING* Rantage ahead!Massawyrm wrote:I've been experiencing a LOT of rudeness at my various online gigs from this. Kids literally think extreme brevity, bluntness and lack of punctuation is acceptable and will not for a moment consider that others might find their behavior rude. They've also grown up in a world where it is totally okay to call someone a rude invective and then never speak to them again - because, hey, it's not like the other person can do something about it....or ever has.
I postulate that unless there's some sort of online upheaval towards politeness, this trend will continue. When many of us first got online, it was a place for the educated and only the educated...you HAD to be just to figure out how t get on. Every day we get further and further from that truth. In a world where asking takes up too much space, demanding becomes the new asking. keep in mind that a lot of these kids don't realize that online there IS a difference.
[rant]I notice this A LOT in my teaching here in Japan and I have friends who are teachers in the US who tell me the same stories. The root of the problem is the changing family dynamic. I think the concept of the family is seriously breaking down. Both parents have to work crazy hours to support their family and when they get home they're too tired to care for the kids. They don't help them with their school work or even support them in general by conversing with them. Then the parents think it's entirely upon their child's teachers to do all of the work of raising them. (Hmm...you work 8 hours a day and can't care for your 1 or 2 kids, but you expect your child's teacher to teach their subject to dozens of children AND provide them with the individual guidance they need to master basic life skills? Hah! ) And then when the child doesn't do well the parents blame it all on the teacher, usually loudly in the presence of their children, so the children think their teachers are idiots because they pick up the disdain from their parents. Yes, it's a teacher's job to teach their subject and teach it well, but all those basic life skills like respect and civility have to first come from the family. And when a student respects their teacher and can sit and study in a civil fashion, guess what? Their grades go up! In Japan teachers still have a great deal of interaction with the parents so we know what the various family dynamics are like and it's almost 100% true that in a household where the parents are supportive of their children the children excel in school. The reverse is also true; if the parents are lazy or overworked and inattentive the students struggle in their classes. Like I said, it's not 100% true, but it's pretty close.[/rant]
This is a sore point for me if you can't tell.
But in a nutshell, my opinion is that until families start working together to care for each other, (and I'm not espousing right-wing conservative philosophy, just common civility and responsibility,) the youth of the world will become even further mired in mediocrity.I'm not picking on anyone in general. In fact, I find gamers usually make pretty good parents because the games we play require developing patience and dedication which carry over into the rest of our lives.
-HZ
