Baby boomers versus today's kids...you never had it so good!

[Northern Lass]

did you see on the news...

what a shame for them

or is it

what you think?

I am there with send em up the chimneys to earn their keep!

[Rob]

What's a baby boomer?

[Antie Em]

What's a baby boomer?

I always thought it was the children born after the war in what they called the baby boom - 1946 to about 1960

[MarkCDodd]

Generation Y (todays kids) have to absorb far more information than the baby Boomers.

The amount of knowledge they have to cram into their heads is phenomenal compared to even 20 years ago.

One of the effects of increased knoweldge is a different sense of self worth.

They can't see the need to have to earn your way through the ranks.

I encounter this all the time when hiring young people.

They are yet to learn that experience is just as valuable as knowledge in most occupations.

It takes a bit of skill to direct their ambitions into accepting positions they might regard as being "below their abilities".

Most of the ones that turn out to be any good realise they have a lot to learn apart from what university has taught them.

[snoopysue]

Generation Y (todays kids) have to absorb far more information than the baby Boomers.
They can't see the need to have to earn your way through the ranks.

I encounter this all the time when hiring young people.

They are yet to learn that experience is just as valuable as knowledge in most occupations.
It takes a bit of skill to direct their ambitions into accepting positions they might regard as being "below their abilities".
Most of the ones that turn out to be any good realise they have a lot to learn apart from what university has taught them.

We see this with our students! One of the main problems is that they are so exam focused. We had a problem with a couple we've just had on placement, once their exam was done and dusted, they couldn't see the need to be at the hospital (despite the fact that they have to have an average of 30 hours a week) - I made the point that the more practical experience they have the better they will be at the end of the day. The student I was talking to, thourght that the only reason to show was so that she didn't get a bad reference when she eventually applied for a job!
These days they have to be good, as the jobs definately don't grow on trees. Out of the last lot who qualified one half have jobs (some of which are locum positions), and the lot before them only 4 have permanent positions!

[SRD]

I don't agree Mark, we had just as much to assimilate but our information was different, nowadays much of what we had to learn by rote is done by electronica. It has always been so, a couple of years back I remember reading about one of the academic geniuses of late medieval times advocating a university education saying that students would learn such esoterica as long division.
Education over here nowadays is much narrower and rarely includes the kind of life skills that mean you understand that learning is a lifelong thing, mind you, we were pretty arrogant when being confronted with quills and ink when typewriters were available.
But my skills include a better than average knowledge of Latin, how to use a slide rule, an intimate knowledge of Herodotus' Histories, Plautus' and Aristophanes' plays in English translation, how to make gunpowder and mustard gas, how to set an ambush in the jungle, the poetry of Thom Gunn and Ted Hughes, Gounod's Opera 'Faust', how to operate a wood lathe and a metal one, how to use fibre glass resin to create a hard, coloured, skin on hardboard, enough 'General Knowledge' to ensure that I'm often in demand for quiz teams, and countless other things that a modern day scholar knows nothing of. And I left school at 17.
As Snoopysue says, modern day education is much more exam focused and the emphasis on passing exams, going to college, getting good grades is bound to encourage a 'better than thou' attitude.

[MarkCDodd]

It is not a "better than thou" attitude at all!

It is a better sense of self worth and self assurance.

They are more comfortable with who they are and their own opinions and ideas.

This self assurance is mistranslated as arrogance by those who fail to see why.

It is not just school where their knowledge is gathered.

They have access to the Internet. They learn about the about the world at their own pace and without the enforced structure of formal teaching.

They have far more contact with their peers and exchange ideas amongst a larger group than ever before.

They bypass the filtering that occurs thought the news print and other media and get exposed to far more ideas and theories than their parents could ever hope to access.

They have a more defined idea of their place and worth and this is what has to be catered for in the work place.

SRD gave an example of having to learn to use a slide rule.

Slide rules and log tables are a skill alien to modern students and therefore appear more complex than they are.

I can assure you that using those was far easier to grasp than the first "reverse polish notation" scientific calculators.

Today the Calculators have over 130 buttons and are a miracle of technology.

Because of calculators, students are now taught far more complex mathematics than was possible when I was a student.

Not because the kids are smarter, but because more can be done in the alloted time in examinations.

I did Pure Mathermatics as well as Applied Mathematics. Using a slide rule, a mathematical proof might take me 45 minutes or more to complete.

The same thing with a scientific calculator might take 15 minutes.

If my daughter is doing an essay on a particular book she can jump online and read the opinions of hundreds if not thousands of others.

So she can reinforce her opinion based on what myriads of others who agree have said.

This makes her far more sure of her opinions than I would dare express at her age.

Gen Y are different and many companies now run classes on how to recruit them and keep them motivated.

There are classes for the older workers on how to deal with them.

I have nothing but admiration for the Gen Y I have employed and worked with.

Harness their ethusiasm and they are fantastic employees.

As can be seen by their actions in the Fire, Flood and Cyclone problems in Australia over the last two years, they are also just as community minded and willing to help as any earlier generations.

[snoopysue]

As Snoopysue says, modern day education is much more exam focused and the emphasis on passing exams, going to college, getting good grades is bound to encourage a 'better than thou' attitude.

I wouldn't say that education was more exam based, certainly as far as our School of Radiography goes, they have to supply radiographers that on the whole are able to function as radiographers relatively quickly after graduation. If they do not, then hospitals like ours will chose to have students from other institutions for their practical placement. Hence they place demands on the students such as attendance levels, and the exams are a mixture of practical and theoretical knowledge, which is afterall what I use in my everyday life as a radiographer - even though I'm not always aware of it. It's very much the students themselves that are exam fixated!

[SRD]

I think that feeling of self assurance is taught to them not acquired by general understanding. I had a varied education; a Church of England primary school where education was mainly by rote but at a time when new ideas were beginning to infiltrate the system, a boarding prep school where the education was 'traditional' and concentrated on the core subjects needed to get through the Common Entrance exam, I was the only one in my year that passed the 11+ which meant that, should they not be accepted into a public school (unlikely as there would always be somewhere to take their parents money) they would have been condemned to a State Secondary education that finished at 15. The place was run on the basis of bullying, both by teachers and pupils, which may have allowed the bullies to excel but meant that a swathe of the kids came out with no self-confidence whatsoever. I then attended a direct grant Grammar School (halfway beyween a State school and a Public school) where the kids were encouraged to enjoy a wide and diverse education and to value their own judgements, the difference was amazing as were the results, with the vast majority going on to achieve well in life. I then went to a State Comprehensive for my A levels where things were completely different again, very much a return to the 'Don't think for yourselves' attitudes and expectations of the majority of the staff for the pupils were generally low, and it showed, when we discussed further education none thought they were good enough to attempt a senior university, although a couple did actually achieve it. Some were fortunate if a form or house teacher was enthusiastic and saw them through but the vast majority were of the 'We know we're no good because we're told we're no good' variety. Much of my self-confidence came from my parents, teachers both although my step-father gave up teaching to become a director of his father's engineering company.

I can't speak much for down under, the only example we have is a grand-daughter (8 or 9 years old) who seems to our mind terribly introverted, poor at communication and uninterested in her surroundings, the complete opposite of our English grand-daughter.

Regarding the breadth of available knowledge on the internet, research has shown that most users of the internet rely on the same, small, handful of sites, nowhere near the 600+ books/articles/L.P.s/etc. that I had on my 'reading list' for my first year at A-level and that many sites on the net simply copy from other sites. The best students read/listened to them all, as the best of today's students get out of the same circle of sites on the net, but they only do so because of the education thay have received. I'm not saying that things are better or worse than in my days at school, or that more or less knowledge is held by today's students, just that what they know is different to what we know, whether that is more relevant to todays world or not, whether that allows a greater enjoyment of life are both moot points, Australians generally seem to be happy, with the 'Can do' attitude of a youthful nation, although prone somewhat to the disease of whingeing that they used to accuse us of, we are currently going through a period of introspection and are supposedly the most unhappy people in the world, but we seem to be stoically putting up with all the s*** fed to us by those who run the country and the world and that we feel we have no means of altering things, an attitude learnt from centuries of experience.

[SRD]

As Snoopysue says, modern day education is much more exam focused and the emphasis on passing exams, going to college, getting good grades is bound to encourage a 'better than thou' attitude.

I wouldn't say that education was more exam based, certainly as far as our School of Radiography goes, they have to supply radiographers that on the whole are able to function as radiographers relatively quickly after graduation. If they do not, then hospitals like ours will chose to have students from other institutions for their practical placement. Hence they place demands on the students such as attendance levels, and the exams are a mixture of practical and theoretical knowledge, which is afterall what I use in my everyday life as a radiographer - even though I'm not always aware of it. It's very much the students themselves that are exam fixated!

My comments are more based on academic rather than vocational or job based training but there are criticisms in this country that nurses come from training into the ward with the medical ability of a junior doctor but unable to make a bed or change a bedpan.

[snoopysue]

My comments are more based on academic rather than vocational or job based training but there are criticisms in this country that nurses come from training into the ward with the medical ability of a junior doctor but unable to make a bed or change a bedpan.

I'd agree there!
I did my training towards the end of the old system! My college was busy getting accreditation so it could offer a degree course. The College of Radiographers which up to that point had controlled how we were trained and the universities came from different perspectives - the university wanting theory, almost to the exclusion of all else, the CoR wanting enough practical placement that the finished product would be of use to the potential employers.

There were however several things that were better about the degree course: they taught psychology, and that would have come in handy at times. We experinced staff have learnt the hard way how to recognise and tackle patients (how most patients leave their normal personality and in some cases common sense at the door to the hospital). Some universities teach anatomy along side the medical students which really helps in the understanding in 3D of how our bodies are put together. This is a very neccesary to be a good radiographer.
As for the nurses having the medical ability of junior doctors, with the old system, they got this and more with experience!

As far as "Vocational" jobs go, I would hope most of us have one of those! (A vocation, from the Latin vocare (verb, to call), is a term for an occupation to which a person is specially drawn or for which they are suited, trained or qualified).

[MarkCDodd]

There has always been a gap between the theory and practice that Universities do not address.

In Australian you can go to University to get a degree or attend TAFE to get an associate diploma or equivalent.

TAFE courses concentrate on the usefull theory and enforce industry experience before you can pass the three or four year course.

Meanwhile the University equivalents have done 4 years of theory and their first work experience is as a graduate.

The way I describe the difference is a TAFE graduate can design a perfectly adequate screwdriver plus know how to use it.

A University graduate can design over complex screw drivers and have no idea which end to hold.

Each year I have three I.T. Graduates to work with.

The lack of practical experience is evident and the reality of budgets, time contraints and "customer focus" comes as a shock to them.

[SRD]

As far as "Vocational" jobs go, I would hope most of us have one of those! (A vocation, from the Latin vocare (verb, to call), is a term for an occupation to which a person is specially drawn or for which they are suited, trained or qualified).

Most of the people I know work because they have to pay the bills and would change what they do at the drop of a hat if they could, very few do their job because they want to.

[SRD]

The lack of practical experience is evident and the reality of budgets, time contraints and "customer focus" comes as a shock to them.

A friend of ours is a jeweller, she takes promising students in to her business to give them experience before they set up on their own. She finds that not one of them has any idea on how to actually do the work to a schedule and spends most of her time with them chivvying them along and getting them up to a sufficient speed to make it financially viable to produce sufficient work to make a living. It usually takes about 6 months before they are able to apply the skills they were taught at college (usually pretty good) at a fast enough rate to make them worth anything.

[snoopysue]

As far as "Vocational" jobs go, I would hope most of us have one of those! (A vocation, from the Latin vocare (verb, to call), is a term for an occupation to which a person is specially drawn or for which they are suited, trained or qualified).

Most of the people I know work because they have to pay the bills and would change what they do at the drop of a hat if they could, very few do their job because they want to.

What I was saying that you chose a proffesion, yes first because you have to pay the bills, but there after you hopefully go in a direction that interests you!
Some people would think my job, for example, is not to far removed from a nurses, but you couldn't pay me enough to do their job (I am however very grateful that they do that job).
People tend to use the word vocation when they mean it's a calling, well no, it's not. As the definition above states it can be a job for which you are trained or qualified! It's a term that always seems to be bandied about when wage negotiations are underway! Yes we may enjoy what we do, but being on call for 16 hours straight and attending road accidents at all times of the day, we could do without!