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> My GF is an elementary school teacher and she says Respectfully, I've spent a _great deal of time_ with elementary school teachers, and many appear very very

> My GF is an elementary school teacher and she says Respectfully, I've spent a _great deal of time_ with elementary school teachers, and many appear very very willing to diagnose random children, adults, and coworkers as being "a bit autistic", and so on. In addition, and assuming wildly here, how old is she? If you're the HN average of about 30, and she's about your age, she doesn't really have a cross-generational experience to pull from, even assuming she was making observations free of the very many cognitive biases one would expect in this situation. My bet would be that if you found a teacher -- from almost any point in history -- and asked them what the kids are like in their time period, they'd tell you about the latest inventions that have made their kids uniquely awful and anti-social. I'll spare you pulling out the 3,000 year-old quotes about how "young people these days don't respect their elders". If there are some studies that show it, I'd be all for it. Teacher anecdotes are uniquely poor quality samples, in my opinion.

murph-almighty 8y ago
> My GF is an elementary school teacher and she says Respectfully, I've spent a _great deal of time_ with elementary school teachers, and many appear very very willing to diagnose random children, adults, and coworkers as being "a bit autistic", and so on. I've had a very similar experience with the people I know who are trying to be teachers, though most of the people I deal with are either in or just out of college and this could be attributed to inexperience. I find it a little troubling that I see people practically seeking examples of unusual social behavior and attributing it to autism. I saw this sort of pseudo-analysis happen a lot with Sheldon in Big Bang Theory. Opinions of the show aside, I don't think it was ever explicitly stated that he had a social disorder.
scarejunba 8y ago
Seriously, let’s be real. How much experience does this elementary school teacher have with the previous generation? None, probably. Through all of time we’ve heard this. The current generation is supposedly rubbish in some way the previous generation was not. Instead it’s been the opposite. Each succeeding generation has surpassed the previous in any human quality. I have immense confidence that our collective children will be the same. We are better people than our parents. Our kids will be better than us. No doubt about it.
- creep 8y ago
  I have the same outlook. There are bad points in every generation, but groups of people don't get arbitrarily worse because they were born together at a certain point in time. Every generation faces a new challenge, and every generation attempts to overcome it, usually with unique results. Previous generations have no concept of the challenges their kids and grandkids face. I'm a millenial, and my partner's parents, stereotypically, are always going off about how lazy, whiny, and unmotivated my generation is. From where I stand it's the complete opposite. I could explain why but, at the risk of starting a debate about millenials, I'll just say that my generation has been working on solutions to problems our parents either didn't have to deal with, or weren't aware of. And that's just the way "generations" work.
sanderjd 8y ago
I've made this same argument to my teacher friends who are worried about the youth. But consider this: while they may not have direct experience with youth across generations, we are unlikely to have as much experience with the youth of any generation as they do.

murph-almighty 8y ago

> My GF is an elementary school teacher and she says Respectfully, I've spent a _great deal of time_ with elementary school teachers, and many appear very very willing to diagnose random children, adults, and coworkers as being "a bit autistic", and so on. I've had a very similar experience with the people I know who are trying to be teachers, though most of the people I deal with are either in or just out of college and this could be attributed to inexperience. I find it a little troubling that I see people practically seeking examples of unusual social behavior and attributing it to autism. I saw this sort of pseudo-analysis happen a lot with Sheldon in Big Bang Theory. Opinions of the show aside, I don't think it was ever explicitly stated that he had a social disorder.

scarejunba 8y ago

Seriously, let’s be real. How much experience does this elementary school teacher have with the previous generation? None, probably. Through all of time we’ve heard this. The current generation is supposedly rubbish in some way the previous generation was not. Instead it’s been the opposite. Each succeeding generation has surpassed the previous in any human quality. I have immense confidence that our collective children will be the same. We are better people than our parents. Our kids will be better than us. No doubt about it.

creep 8y ago
I have the same outlook. There are bad points in every generation, but groups of people don't get arbitrarily worse because they were born together at a certain point in time. Every generation faces a new challenge, and every generation attempts to overcome it, usually with unique results. Previous generations have no concept of the challenges their kids and grandkids face. I'm a millenial, and my partner's parents, stereotypically, are always going off about how lazy, whiny, and unmotivated my generation is. From where I stand it's the complete opposite. I could explain why but, at the risk of starting a debate about millenials, I'll just say that my generation has been working on solutions to problems our parents either didn't have to deal with, or weren't aware of. And that's just the way "generations" work.

sanderjd 8y ago

I've made this same argument to my teacher friends who are worried about the youth. But consider this: while they may not have direct experience with youth across generations, we are unlikely to have as much experience with the youth of any generation as they do.