The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future

Mark Bauerlein

Part 3

A simplistic reading of the later chapters of Bauerlein’s book would instruct me to reject the allure of digital media and technology. It is interesting that as I approached the end of this book I started to come around to the point of view that my role as a classroom teacher is one of considerable power. I can take these young unformed minds and guide them to a happy point where they can appreciate, no, more than that, inherit their language, and use it to connect with the read/write web in productive, informed ways. Bauerlein challenges the mentors of the young and that is what I am about to become: so I intend to take up the gauntlet and run with it. If my classroom is going to be the only place where some of my students will ever hold a book, let alone read it, then we are going to hold books, the original artifacts of intellect.

My students are going to hold the books, read them, respond to them, build their vocabularies, develop their abilities to articulate ideas meaningfully in different contexts, and then they are going to take on the web as the new literati, as readers and translators and interpreters, even information managers. Well, some of them at least. Then they are going to become skilled at harnessing the power of the read/write web to their own ends for the good of all. Sigh. The dream bubble just burst. I remembered that those students, who I inherit, who couldn’t read at grade level in third grade, are unlikely to ever read at grade level despite my best efforts so I have to adjust my grandiose vision to meet reality. Okay…some of my students are going to rise up and become the new literati….

It’s a heck of a challenge to be an English language arts teacher in an age in which language is so threatened. The idea that some of my students may never ever be able to understand what I have been writing about in my blog is depressing. But the knowledge that some will, and may well go on to do better than I at articulating the angst of their generation, is uplifting. SO I am still of two minds about digital media and literacy. Obviously my students are going to need a guide, and I realize that I have to come down off my lofty perch and spend some more time in the trenches, learning the ropes again, or rather, learning some different kinds of ropes. Bauerlein serves a warning to educators who decide that the fight is not important. Richardson points toward the frontline and tells us to get going already. It’s kind of exciting. I would love to be one of those secret superweapons who is going to turn the tide of battle. And perhaps doing so for some of my a-literate students will be enough.  And for some of my others who may struggle the most in my class—perhaps I will sow the seeds of their future success. I hope so.