Mindset

I’m not a huge fan of the Beloit College Mindset List–not because it isn’t fun and interesting, but because I think there are people who take it seriously and believe it will help them relate to “kids these days,” when they could probably use it just as well to relate to younger colleagues. Or, you know, just read it as the fun thing it is.

Exhibit one: an unscientifically chosen pair of engineers/computer people in their early 30s (Dale and me), responding to the list:

3. Rush Limbaugh and the “Dittoheads” have always been lambasting liberals. – Yes? Though what’s a “Dittohead”?
6. They may confuse the Keating Five with a rock group. – Who?
7. They have grown up with bottled water. – Is that a new thing?
10. Pete Rose has never played baseball. – Who?
11. Rap music has always been mainstream. – Hasn’t it?
12. Religious leaders have always been telling politicians what to do, or else! – For as long as I’ve paid attention to politics, but then I grew up in the south.
14. Music has always been “unplugged.” – Hasn’t it?
16. Women have always been police chiefs in major cities. – I honestly don’t know. I don’t remember “the first female police chief” being news.
20. Half of them may have been members of the Baby-sitters Club. – So were we. I’m surprised it lasted that long. Go books!
24. Being “lame” has to do with being dumb or inarticulate, not disabled. – Old news. That’s always been true (in my lifetime), too.
25. Wolf Blitzer has always been serving up the news on CNN. – Maybe? But who watches CNN?
26. Katie Couric has always had screen cred. – I don’t even know what this means, but OK.
28. They never found a prize in a Coca-Cola “MagiCan.” – Me neither.
29. They were too young to understand Judas Priest’s subliminal messages. – …
30. When all else fails, the Prozac defense has always been a possibility. – The Prozac Defense? I didn’t know that was a thing.
33. U2 has always been more than a spy plane. – Hasn’t it?
34. They were introduced to Jack Nicholson as “The Joker.” – So was I.
35. Stadiums, rock tours and sporting events have always had corporate names. – Glad to know that wasn’t always true.
36. American rock groups have always appeared in Moscow. – I don’t remember this transition, but I acknowledge it happened after I was born.
37. Commercial product placements have been the norm in films and on TV. – Of course they have.
39. Fox has always been a major network. – Sadly.
40. They drove their parents crazy with the Beavis and Butt-Head laugh. – So did we.
42. Women’s studies majors have always been offered on campus. – Not in Alaska, but OK.
43. Being a latchkey kid has never been a big deal. – ? Who wasn’t a latchkey kid in the 90s?
45. They learned about JFK from Oliver Stone and Malcolm X from Spike Lee. – …
48. Microbreweries have always been ubiquitous. – Certainly since I’ve been old enough to drink.
50. Smoking has never been allowed in public spaces in France. – Because this is the big one on their minds, these kids… (I didn’t know this)
52. Time has always worked with Warner. – I know they were separate companies at one time, but not how long ago that was.
53. Tiananmen Square is a 2008 Olympics venue, not the scene of a massacre. – I wasn’t really old enough to know about Tiananmen Square when it happened, but I bet we still teach kids history…
54. The purchase of ivory has always been banned. – Is that recent, too?
58. They get much more information from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert than from the newspaper. – Who doesn’t?
59. They’re always texting 1 n other. – Adults are equally guilty of this, in some circles.
60. They will encounter roughly equal numbers of female and male professors in the classroom. – Depends on their major, as it depended on mine.
62. They have no idea who Rusty Jones was or why he said “goodbye to rusty cars.” – Who?
63. Avatars have nothing to do with Hindu deities. First association: blue people; second: online identities; third: Hindu deities.
64. Chavez has nothing to do with iceberg lettuce and everything to do with oil. – … lettuce?
67. Chronic fatigue syndrome has always been debilitating and controversial. – Chronic fatigue syndrome is a thing?
69. Dilbert has always been ridiculing cubicle culture. – And Dilbert’s been ridiculing cubicle culture since before WAY OLDER people were old enough to get the joke, too.
70. Food packaging has always included nutritional labeling. – It hasn’t? I guess maybe I vaguely recall that?

Very few of these bullet points would be important to the people they set out to describe–and I’m not convinced that many of them are major distinguishing points in outlook, between young and old, anyway. For instance, I took out “What Berlin Wall?,” which might be a useful one, because I vaguely recall it coming down; however, I was so young that I didn’t understand the significance until much later. I could easily have left that one in, because I was a child, not much a part of the pre-Berlin Wall world. And I’m 30ish; if they pick things that also describe me, to describe people 12 years younger than me, I have some doubts about their perspective and about the value of this list for anything more than a chuckle at time passing.

Read it, because it’s fun; then go on treating your incoming students as people, not as automatons, completely representative of their generation.