Generation X | Lifecourse Blog

Reforming K-12 for Millennials

Education, Generation X, Millennial 1 Response »

Jul 092010

OK, this is just one most good-news story about a turn-around middle school. But it’s interesting that time and again we notice the same ingredients for success whenever you read these stories. There’s the fanatical emphasis on structure, even regimentation. The nonstop checking to make sure every kid is accounted for. The detailed scripting of lesson plans, including the use of “direct instruction.” The constant use of testing-not for final evaluation, but to assess the exact extent of learning week to week. The nonstop feedback to the kids themselves. Every teacher checks to make sure that every student is accounted for, that every student is busy and engaged. Proper behavior comes first, then learning. Bars on windows are replaced by bright colors. And-here’s the Generation X (born 1961-1981) touch I really like-the school principal is fully in charge. No one looks to “the system.” It’s the principal who “owns” the school, is captain of the ship.

Principal: “”Children deserve the best, every day, now,” he said. ” ‘Can’t' shouldn’t even exist in your dictionary. You have to find a way. That’s why we’re getting paid.”

Gen-X officers: Whatever it takes

4th Turning (Crisis), Baby Boomer, Generation X No Responses »

Jul 072010

Creativity, risk, deception: These are the tools without which no Generation X (born 1961-1981) can get the job done right. The conflict between this Boomer (flag officer) versus Gen Xer (field-grade officer) is something I have seen before. This article simply offers another example of what the argument is about. Sooner or later, thanks to generational replacement, Xers will win this argument.

Michael Oates, btw, is a late-wave Boomer. But he speaks for his junior fellow officers. No more than General George Patton or Francis “Swamp Fox” Marion, this is not a generation that cares much about the Marquess of Queensberry rules.

Speaking of Patton, I think everyone who saw the movie recalls that Patton himself was used (against his will) to deceive the Germans on several occasions, including the ruse of invading Greece rather than Sicily, which is mentioned in this article.

Children of the Bull?

Economics, Generation X, Millennial 6 Responses »

Jun 072010

Two somewhat different takes on the Millennial (born 1982-200?) leading edge in the workplace. The first is in the NYT Magazine:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/magazine/30fob-wwln-t.html?pagewanted=print

It is called “The Why-Worry Generation,” quotes us, and ultimately agrees with our positive take on how Millennials are handling the current downturn.

An Generation X (born 1961-1981) apparently disagrees and has written a rejoinder called “Children of the Bull”:

http://blogs.babble.com/strollerderby/2010/06/01/generation-y-or-children-of-the-bull/

Best quotes from this Xer:

First the dripping sarcasm: Nothing was too good for the Children of the Bull, and everyone from jewelers to five-star hotels clamored for the business of their parents, offering up treasures ranging from emerald earings for little Emma to luxury tropical vacation camps for tiny Caleb. But all that money bought other things too, goodies that should not have been purchased so thoughtlessly.

Then the self-revelation: While as a die-hard Gen X slacker myself, I fervently admire the Children of the Bull’s refusal to buckle down and serve The Man, any casual survey of economic data circa 2010 tells you that their burst of self-confidence is probably fueled not by their unique resilience but by the monetary energy received from one last desperate hit from the parental financial tit.

Finally, the bottom line: How the Children of the Bull will deal with making it on their own has yet to be determined. But I’m betting they will handle it the same way as every generation before them: they’ll give up on expecting employee paradise and get to work.

In our new book, needless to say, we disagree. (Though I love this Xer’s style—so archetypal!) We say that it’s not this young generation that will change, but the behavior of the older generations who manage them—at least in those companies that don’t go bankrupt.

Crime Continues to Fall

Generation X, Millennial 4 Responses »

Jun 012010

One by one, as all of the conventional explanations of changes in the crime rate are contradicted by the evidence—such as the one about how crime goes up when the economy goes bad—the media and criminologists grasp ever more desperately for alternative explanations. In this article, experts are quoted as saying the decline must be due to better police work… and faster response times. Right.

I await the day when some enterprising investigative journalist will suggest a link between the last fifteen years of crime reduction with the generational substitution of Millennial (born 1982-200?) for Generation X (born 1961-1981) in the high-crime youth phase of life. It will happen. Sometime soon.

X’er Mom: Free-Range Kids

Education, Generation X No Responses »

May 272010

A very good piece about Generation X (born 1961-1981) moms are running against the tide of over-protection. Unlike most X’er parents who want to protect their Homelander children at all costs, she instead suggest that kids should learn by being out in the world playing with peers on their own. She’s right, of course, that playing games with peers develops self regulation. But the new mode (see the preschool “Tools of the Mind” curriculum) develops self-regulation by games with the teacher or by carefully supervised peer games in which the various roles play are all pre-chosen. That way you make sure that the games only teach the right lessons and none of the wrong ones.

The need to some kind of role-playing or game-playing to develop self-regulation is very well established. In a famous European study, one group of 2nd graders was simply told to stand absolutely still for as long as they could. Average time before giving up: around 2 minutes. Another group was told to stand absolutely still because you are a sentry on duty guarding a post. Average time: 12 minutes. The need kids have to “imagine themselves into” a role of success or mastery at something (as a parent, doctor, patient, scientist, warrior, whatever) is so basic that one wonders why ordinary K-12 schools don’t tap into it more often.

Surge in black GOP candidates for 2010

4th Turning (Crisis), Generation X, Millennial, Politics 4 Responses »

May 242010

Interesting article in NYT: Record number of black GOPs running for Congress in 2010. There seem to be at least 32 of them. And, for the first time, most of them seem to be young—nearly all Generation X (born 1961-1981). One, Princella Smith (running in AK) is a super-achieving pro-life Millennial (born 1982-200?) (age 26). If just a quarter of them get elected, this would hugely change the partisan composition of younger black Reps.

The article suggests that they are running more on the economic and political right (smaller govt, balanced budgets) than on the social values right. Yet the story also mentions two conservative values positions—on gays and abortion—that resonate with black Americans.

I’m not sure what to make of this. Am open to suggestions.

Boomer way of dying?

4th Turning (Crisis), Baby Boomer, Generation X, GI Generation, Health, Silent 5 Responses »

May 132010

As Bill and I pointed out in Generations and The Fourth Turning, every generation approaches life’s major passages with its own distinctive style. And that certainly includes death. In recent years, most of the media attention has focused on how the Silent (born 1925-1942) are choosing to negotiate the final passage—e.g., with warmly humanized nursing homes and hospices (like the “Eden Alternative”) and movies like “The Bucket List.” (In his final moments, apparently, Jack Nicholson will be carefully crossing the last of 27 items off his agenda.) The G.I. (born 1901-1924) exit style—emphasizing social largesse and institutional pomp—is already fast fading. The Silent style is kinder, gentler, more personal, and, as always with this generation, touched by ironic humor.

Yet we Boomer (born 1943-1960) are also getting older. And if you look carefully, you can already catch glimpses of how Boomers will do it (and are doing it) differently. With Boomers, the nursing homes will be gone entirely, replaced by “elective communities” and NORC’s (naturally occurring retirement communities—meaning, I go nowhere; I will get some Generation X (born 1961-1981) contractor to bring services to me!). As for all those lists, I think many Boomers will throw away the pen and the lined paper… and opt for an experience more interior, more mythical, more transcendent. And will mind-altering drugs play a role? For many Boomers, you bet. They came in handy in our youth, and many of us will revisit them, like a familiar friend, at the end.

It is in this sober and reflective spirit that I offer the following AP story about a 1943-cohort woman who, worried about the grave prognosis for her cancer, enrolled in one of a burgeoning number of programs that offer psychedelic drugs to terminal patients. In her case, the experience was very positive—as it has also been, it seems, for many others. The story received an amazing 337 comments. It took me back to Carlos Castaneda, “the teachings of Don Juan,” certain mushrooms, and the deserts of the southwest. If you’re not a Boomer, you wouldn’t understand.

The Millennial Metropolis

4th Turning (Crisis), Baby Boomer, Economics, Generation X, Millennial No Responses »

May 102010

A very nice piece by Morley Winograd and Mike Hais. If you look at surveys over time, you will notice that Boomer (born 1943-1960) have *always* been relatively partial to the ideal of rural/wilderness living; and Generation X (born 1961-1981) to the ideal of creative and diverse urban living (now called new urbanism, mixed use, infill paradise, what have you). Millennial (born 1982-200?) show a partiality to the small town and the suburb—yes, the suburb: take that all you apocalyptic Boomers who have always expressed such hatred for the brave new world your parents built! Keep in mind, though, that for single Millennials this remains their ideal for their stable, married, familied future, not necessarily for the present. The favorite destination for single Millennials remains big and busy (and now safer) cities. NYC tops the list.

btw, when NCLB was legislated back in 2001, no provision was bitterly resisted by teachers unions and the majority of Democratic leaders as the rule that school children in persistently failing districts eventually be given the right to choose new schools. Go back and look at the record. This was a Bush monstrosity that would unravel the very fabric of our public school system, etc., etc. Now this principle is accepted across the political spectrum, and even the unions are conceding. Reason, imo, is the rapidly growing impact over the last ten years of Gen-X parents. Districts everywhere in America are now wooing parents with slogans about how they want to “be their choice” of schools. What a sea change!

Generational Equity

4th Turning (Crisis), Baby Boomer, Economics, Generation X, Millennial, Politics 3 Responses »

May 032010

IMO, this is a generational shot across the bow. Expect a lot more of this in the years to come. Bill and I used to talk about up-card and down-cards in our theory. Up-cards are things we expected and have already come to pass. Down-cards are things we expect but have not yet happened to any significant extent. Young-adult dissatisfaction with unfair income transfers to Boomer (born 1943-1960) is a down card. It hasn’t happened yet but surely will happen. We didn’t see it with Generation X (born 1961-1981), because, well, they’re Xers. They all try to find their own individual solutions and survival strategies. But Millennial (born 1982-200?) are different. They will organize and be heard. And Boomers will not dare stand in their way.
Nice X/Y Quote: “Recall that there was once a reason for the unionization movement. History repeats itself….The pendulum swings the other way.”

Death of the American Century

4th Turning (Crisis), Generation X, Politics, Silent 7 Responses »

Apr 302010

This interesting—and implicitly generational—piece by Henry Allen discusses the changing assumptions about America’s role in the world. This view that Allen describes, of America as history’s existential good guy, is very linked to the psyche of his Silent (born 1925-1942). It is simply so hard for this generation ever to believe that there are vast numbers of people in the world who really don’t like us or would even enjoy seeing us suffer, and not for anything particular we have done but (to use the phrase that became popular after 911) simply for who we are. It’s fascinating, in retrospect, that the Silent interpreted the warmth with which a war-devastated world regarded Goliath America just after WWII as genuine affection, as opposed to transient gratitude triggered by necessity. Gratitude is a very difficult emotion for any society, or even for any individual, to sustain over time. Especially, when the gift we have received cannot be paid back. Often, we end up resenting the emotional burden. Case and point: France’s fraught attitude toward America since our nation-saving intervention in two world wars.

In any event, Generation X (born 1961-1981) seems entirely unmoved by the emotional tensions and turmoil that Allen describes. I would suggest he is describing something that pretty much affects his generation alone.

Back in the 1990s, Allen interviewed me at length about a feature story he was doing (it was later published in the WP) on how people of different ages react to that old Warner Brothers cartoon about Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote. In a talk he was giving at a local college, he discovered by accident that all of the (Xer) students sympathized with the coyote, not the roadrunner. He was flabbergasted, because for as long as he could remember, he and his peers had always rooted for the roadrunner. He wrote a moving account—Allen is a wonderful writer—about why these differences arose. And he gave a fairly good rendition of some of the basic generational drivers that may be behind the shift.

Could these two differences be related? When you look at America’s role in the world, what view do you take—that of the Roadrunner (beautiful, swift, above the fray, never has to think about eating—and never worried about losing), or that of the coyote (ugly but clever, determined, just another dog who’s got to get a meal—and always too-aware of the probability of failure).

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