I found this article online today. I talks about what has happened since incoming college freshman have been alive.
MILWAUKEE (AP) – For students entering college this fall, e-mail is too slow, phones have never had cords and the computers they played with as kids are now in museums.
The Class of 2014 thinks of Clint Eastwood more as a sensitive director than as Dirty Harry urging punks to “go ahead, make my day.” Few incoming freshmen know how to write in cursive or have ever worn a wristwatch.
These are among the 75 items on this year’s Beloit College Mindset List. The compilation, released Tuesday, is assembled each year by two officials at this private school of about 1,400 students in Beloit, Wis.
The list is meant to remind teachers that cultural references familiar to them might draw blank stares from college freshmen born mostly in 1992.
Of course, it can also have the unintended consequence of making people feel old.
Remember when Dr. Jack Kevorkian, Dan Quayle or Rodney King were in the news? These kids don’t.
Ever worry about a Russian missile strike on the U.S.? During these students’ lives, Russians and Americans have always been living together in outer space.
Being aware of the generation gap helps professors craft lesson plans that are more meaningful, said Ron Nief, a former public affairs director at Beloit College and one of the list’s creators…….
“Snail mail’s kind of fun. When I have time I like writing letters to friends and family,” she said. “It’s just a bit more personal. And yes, I write in cursive.”
Peck did agree with the item pointing out that most teens have never used telephones with cords.
“Yes, I’ve used them but only at my grandparents’ house,” she said.
Keeping this in mind, and while it makes me feel old it certainly makes sense, if colleges are changing their presentation methods, why aren’t churches? Why is that so offensive? These colleges are not teaching different materials…..I think 2+2=4 still (hopefully they are teaching more than that, but this is an example), but if they put it in Facebook, or an electronic white board instead of writing it in chalk, does the message change? Nope! Just the delivery method, into something the student is more comfortable with.
Shouldn’t church be the same way? And yet churches continue to split everyday because older generations can’t let go of the methods they are comfortable with. After all it worked for them, right? So did a corded phone, snail mail and cursive. That is not how the newest generation operates. The church needs to change its delivery of the same message…..”You need Jesus!”. It needs to text it starting with a “U”.
