Infantilizing College
College campuses across the U.S. have initiated change, and it’s not the tuition and costs of textbooks, it’s the elimination of anything considered controversial from classrooms and curriculum. A shift is being made to rid college campuses of offensive, racial, or sexist material and topics. In the September 2015 issue of The Atlantic, authors Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt poignantly title their article “The Coddling of the American Mind” and investigate why U.S. college students are demanding censorship in their studies and “trigger warnings” on the syllabus’ (Lukianoff and Haidt). A crusade is taking place across college campuses everywhere to rid subject matter and discussions of issues that may be regarded as …show more content…
No longer can popular historical literature such as The Great Gatsby or The Grapes of Wrath be assigned reading, as they are considered to possess many misogynist, racist, and obscene viewpoints and references. The impact over what is considered offensive or bias is brought to the forefront of student’s learning and interactions in class. Discussions involving other cultures, and then asking a fellow student of that particular ethnicity, “What do you think about how your culture is viewed?” is slowing becoming a discussion no longer tolerated in classrooms today. A form of “cultural leveling” is being transfixed on this generation’s youth in formal classroom settings. The need to have equality and no distinction between differentiating cultures or norms may perhaps spawn a bland or naïve generation of young adults entering a workforce of diversity and conflicts they are not prepared to encounter or adjust to. This subculture of seemingly coddled college students in the U.S. are hoping to pave a new path toward a society that is color-blind, race-less, and gender-less and generally less offensive to differing beliefs. However, “the current movement is largely about emotional well-being…it presumes an extraordinary frailty of the collegiate psyche, and …show more content…
With a consistently easy access to a plethora of personal opinions, hot debates, and current issues that raise “triggers”, an overprotective method is to shun all these ideas away and protect today’s youth from adversity. Such scrutiny as “helicopter parenting” versus “free-range” parenting has left parents and teachers at a loss for the best way to expose today’s young adults to controversy and tribulations. With the information age at their fingertips, most new college graduates never knew an adolescence without social media and will likely utilize social media to influence reform through such avenues and mass distribution. Society as a whole may be changing as well. Alongside millennials moving into the workforce and influencing politics with their votes, so goes the culture of “victimhood”. This concept is being explored as a repercussion of changing classroom curriculum (Lukianoff and Haidt). In this dilemma, the victim is not to blame for their own emotions or reactions to adversity, instead blaming the accuser of offenses for how they made them feel is the described as the new norm. This includes stereotyping, generalizing, and allowing controversial debate topics to negatively affect students by way of classroom materials. Students encourage each other to respond to even the slightest negative response,
College campuses across the U.S. have initiated change, and it’s not the tuition and costs of textbooks, it’s the elimination of anything considered controversial from classrooms and curriculum. A shift is being made to rid college campuses of offensive, racial, or sexist material and topics. In the September 2015 issue of The Atlantic, authors Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt poignantly title their article “The Coddling of the American Mind” and investigate why U.S. college students are demanding censorship in their studies and “trigger warnings” on the syllabus’ (Lukianoff and Haidt). A crusade is taking place across college campuses everywhere to rid subject matter and discussions of issues that may be regarded as …show more content…
No longer can popular historical literature such as The Great Gatsby or The Grapes of Wrath be assigned reading, as they are considered to possess many misogynist, racist, and obscene viewpoints and references. The impact over what is considered offensive or bias is brought to the forefront of student’s learning and interactions in class. Discussions involving other cultures, and then asking a fellow student of that particular ethnicity, “What do you think about how your culture is viewed?” is slowing becoming a discussion no longer tolerated in classrooms today. A form of “cultural leveling” is being transfixed on this generation’s youth in formal classroom settings. The need to have equality and no distinction between differentiating cultures or norms may perhaps spawn a bland or naïve generation of young adults entering a workforce of diversity and conflicts they are not prepared to encounter or adjust to. This subculture of seemingly coddled college students in the U.S. are hoping to pave a new path toward a society that is color-blind, race-less, and gender-less and generally less offensive to differing beliefs. However, “the current movement is largely about emotional well-being…it presumes an extraordinary frailty of the collegiate psyche, and …show more content…
With a consistently easy access to a plethora of personal opinions, hot debates, and current issues that raise “triggers”, an overprotective method is to shun all these ideas away and protect today’s youth from adversity. Such scrutiny as “helicopter parenting” versus “free-range” parenting has left parents and teachers at a loss for the best way to expose today’s young adults to controversy and tribulations. With the information age at their fingertips, most new college graduates never knew an adolescence without social media and will likely utilize social media to influence reform through such avenues and mass distribution. Society as a whole may be changing as well. Alongside millennials moving into the workforce and influencing politics with their votes, so goes the culture of “victimhood”. This concept is being explored as a repercussion of changing classroom curriculum (Lukianoff and Haidt). In this dilemma, the victim is not to blame for their own emotions or reactions to adversity, instead blaming the accuser of offenses for how they made them feel is the described as the new norm. This includes stereotyping, generalizing, and allowing controversial debate topics to negatively affect students by way of classroom materials. Students encourage each other to respond to even the slightest negative response,