What are your views on the Millennials and homeschooling?

Question

I saw a story on 60 minutes last night about the Millennials entering the workforce, these are the children born between 1980-95. (If you have not seen the story, go to cbsnews.com, click on 60 mintues and watch the video)

Nutshell: millennials enter the workforce are spoiled brats, needing tons of accolades to do the simplest of things. They blame their baby boomer parents. I additionally blame the boomer bosses.

BUT, what, if any, effect do you think education has on this situation. Do you think homeschooling contributes to the situation or minimizes it? Do you feel homeschool students are used to working harder? Do you think public school students are used to being rewarded for just showing up as the article pointed out?

Or do you think the reverse is true?

And last but not least, do you really think it is Mr. Rogers fault???

Answer 1

I blame technology.

In 1960 the only technological devicies you had was the Adding machine (which would also subtract), the typewriter, the telephone, the record player, the car and the TV set.

In 1960 most of the world was stilling hanging clothes outside to dry.

You HAD to know how to multiply and divide for NO device would that for you.

If you were a techno in college you had to learn to work with something called a slide rule and my math professor cousin wrote a book on that device that was 400 pages in size.

With the introduction of the TI, HP and CAsio calculators I foresaw atrophy of the brain.

My first job is retail was with a semi-automatic cash register and we looked up tax on a tax table.  We had to figure out change for $20 in our heads.

Today you can a UPC code and the machine tells you everthing, in fact you can go to the supermarket and go through a NO RETAIL CLERK line

When I first started making serious films you need to buy a $1000 16mm camera or rent one for $100 a day.  If you wanted to do sound it had to be a special camera and that was $150 a day and the recoder was $150 a day and your film was $10 a roll and it cost $10 to process it and $20 to make a work print and you rented editing equipment at home by the week for $200 or went to a center for $200 a day.  Then you conformed your A and B rolls, took it to the lab and paid $200 to get a finished composite of a 5 minute film.

This made your buget in the $500 to $2,000 realm to make a 5 minute film.

Sound cameras were $5,000, sound recorders $5,000, editing machines $10,000.  A little sound reader head and speaker for your 4 gang synchronizer was $400.

When video came along it was no different.  U-Matic of S-VHS was $3,000-$5,000 to buy a deck.  And editing deck was more and you needed a master and a slave and two monitors and an edit controller.

That was a $7,000 to $30,000 investment or you paid $25 an hour to rent a room.

Today you can buy a JVC camcorder for $180 a firewire for $20 your computer comes with Movie Maker or iMovie, you shoot and edit at home and upload to You Tube.

When I used to make a short film for competition it took over a year because I couldn't afford the $2,500 budget

YOu did it in super 8 it cost money and looked bad and you generally couldn't get into a film festival with a super 8 film.

My first multi track machine was a Dokkorder and it cost me $800 and it was 4 track.  I still needed another machine to mix to!

Today you can get a Pro Tools lite rig for less than $800 and it does 8 tracks at once, lets you mix 64 tracks of audio and 128 tracks of midi.  You burn it to CD right on your computer.

I used to have to learn to work with this stuff, learn how to do fancy tricks and make up for my low budget.

Today a 14 year old kid can write their own song if they know major and minor chords on a Casio or Yamaha keyboard and it will play the drums, guitar, bass and full keyboards for you while you play with one or two fingers.  It will record it to memory.  You can then upload it to your computer put it into a $50 multitrack program you buy at CompUSA, then plug in a mic and record your vocal tracks with harmony at home for a total cost of a $125 keyboard, $50 in software and your computer, maybe a few connecting cords.

Thirty years ago you had to hire a band or put one together, take them into a studio or buy your own 4 or 8 track gear for $800-$2,000, but microphones or pay $50 an hour for studio time.

If you wanted to press a record it cost you $500+ for a single or $1,500+ for an album, 1000 units.

Today your burn your CDs make Light Scribe images on the top of them, print out V cards and sell them from the back of your car.  Your cost to fabricate is maybe $3 and you aren't trying to pay back $500 in pressing costs.

Today a 12 year old can be a record producer or filmmaker and on next to no budget and reach more people via the internet than I ever could paying $100 fees to get into a film festival at cities around the country where maybe 500 at each theater would see my film.

Now if there any wonder why kids are spoiled, jaded little things!

They don't have to work for anything anymore.  Except making a living and they think something is owed to them because they are on level 300 of some game and can put up videos on You Tube!

Answer 2

There is this common mentality among corporations that the work must get done, no ifs, ands or buts.

This mentality has little regard for human safety, the impact on the environment, or whether or not there is enough materials to create the all-important product.

Those against public school fight against the training of robots, people trained to respond to bells for the start of the workday, a bell for a break, a bell for lunch, and a bell for the end of the work day (The argument used when I was in school over 20 years ago.) Those who fought against the system back in the 60's and 70's, who dropped out of school and dropped out of society at large became the flower power generation, the anti-war protestors, the hippies searching for the magic key to peace.

Their impact on environmental issues still resonate today. They brought out from behind closed doors such social problems such as child abuse, parental molestation, racism, g*y rights, environmental abuse, and helped point out type-A workaholic stress.

Type-A workaholics are those who want to make the public school system much more regulated in order to train future highly skilled employees to allow American corporations to compete with the corporations employed by people in poverty so desperate for work they work for very little money in terible working conditions for long hours to produce the bilions of pieces of plastic junk that line the shelves at Wal-Marts across the continent.

Public school students learn to turn in assignments on time, to go to each class at the specific time, to learn the required agenda, and to pass the tests that determine skill in passing specific tests.

Homeschooled students learn the meaning of the message, the hows and whys of the subject, they become self-starters and eventually many will own their own businesses.

You seem to be seeking from these children obedience and respect for authority without question. Many of those millenials you disdain have been brought up in times of corporate confusion and dissension, where there is little respect for corporations who show no loyalty to their employees as they cut jobs and outsource to foreign countries all for the sake of earning a few more points in a stock portfolio. Many people entering the workforce have been disillusioned by corporate America, equally disgusted with bosses who treat employees poorly or unfairly for the sake of a few more dollars and at the expense of human safety and disregard for the environment. Why should 'millenials' respect authority when there is little to respect?

If blame is to be assigned, blame the selfish people. Blame the greedy people. Blame the stupid people who refuse to learn and blame those who teach lies.

Place blame equally on parents who did not teach their children how to respect authority as well as on authority that deserves little respect.

But please leave Mr. Rogers out of it. He was just a guy trying to do something about violence and unhappy people on television.

Answer 3

I don't know how HS'ing will affect the outcome for sure, but I can make a good guess :-).  My DH is a manager at work and he's had many employees recently who are in their early 20's.  They are narcisstic, don't want to work for *anything*, and have no self-motivation.  They just want to take shortcuts.  They do not respect him in a position of authority.  It all drives him crazy.

In contrast (all the above were public/private schooled and have 4-yr degrees, too) he teaches a robotics class at our HS co-op for middle school kids.  *ALL* of the kids in that class are respectful, do what is asked of them, are self-motivated, responsible, and think of others before themselves.

So, I'd love to compare these middle schoolers to their peers in 10 years.

I really do think HS'ed children learn respect sooooo much better than those who "socialized" (gag!) by their peers (more gagging).

Answer 4

I started to answer this question this morning but did not have time to watch video.  I watched the video a few minutes ago.  

I was born in 50's and entered workforce in early 70's.  I was a spoiled brat.  I learned much from losing my first job after being there 5 years.  They blamed it on the economy, but it was my work performance that caused them to let me go and kept people who had been hired after I was hired.  I learned.   On my next job, I did my job.  I did more than my job.  I kept my job when others were 'let go' during economic lows.

It is going to be a rude wakeup for these kids as they realize that the world does not revolve around them.

Homeschooling?  I hope that I can instill in my son a good work ethic.  If a person is getting paid for working an hour , he should be actually working  that hour.  If he has nothing to do, he should find something to do.

Public school?  They get on the bus at 7AM and return home at 3PM.  They work, on a good day, about 4 hours on studying, reading, writing, etc.  It is not an efficient use of time.  They start their jobs after high school or college and think that if they actually work 4 of the 8 hours that they are paid, that they are doing what they should.

The economy will fail.  The USA cannot continue living on 'credit'.  The kids are clueless now and will be both frantic and clueless when the party ends.  It is sad.