Education in the Prideful Generation - Essay Example

?The Prideful Generation The educational system has come a long way since the time of our grandparents and parents. During their time, they actually had to work hard in school in order to earn accolades for their perceived accomplishments. There was no such thing as getting a star for “good work” for coloring within the lines at day care. Neither did everyone in class get a trophy for simply participating in an activity. If you participated, you had to win in order to get the trophy. The educators of yesteryear saw no reason to soft soap the failures of students by camouflaging it and turning it into some sort of success. These days, students are treated with kid gloves in an effort to make them feel better about themselves and not harm their young psyche. However, by misleading students into believing that they can accomplish anything they want to and that simply trying is good enough, we are raising a generation of prideful students who think that they do not need to try harder to be better than the next guy in order to succeed in life. They have become a “prideful” generation without really having anything to take pride in. That is the argument of Thomas Benton in his article “the Seven Deadly Sins of Students”, and that is the main focus of this argumentative paper. I will also focus on how the Peter Thiel Fellowship helps to make matters worse for our prideful students because it encourages them to forgo the regular college route in exchange for instant gratification of their ideas. Peter Thiel, the man after whom the grant is named is described as; “... the Silicon Valley investor who believes more young people should be chasing breakthrough technologies instead of wasting their time and money in college. “ (Miller, Claire “Drop Out , Start Up”). Having mentioned the fact that the educational system of the 21st century bases itself upon instant gratification, and that the the schools, colleges, and universities today are more business minded rather than education centered, it is easy to see how the educational system played an integral role in our current crop of students losing their educational way. To quote Thomas Benton (Benton, Thomas “The 7 Deadly Sins of Students”) these students : ... have rarely been given a realistic assessment of their abilities and prospects. Out of this pride -- nurtured by the purveyors of unearned self-esteem, personal grievance, dumbed-down courses, and inflated grades (often in the guise of liberality) -- the opportunity to earn an education is squandered by prideful students who can make a potential heaven seem like hell. The students of today take pride in being able to “achieve” without really doing the work. Although there is some good to be said of positive encouragement, the fact that this type of encouragement has taken over the educational system leaves one wondering as to the direction that these students will actually have in their lives. After all, there is nothing worse than being rewarded for mediocrity. Let us also not forget that long known saying “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” It is that little knowledge that these students possess that people such as Peter Thiel exploit for all the wrong reasons. Thiel believes that students should not waste their time languishing in college and spending college money that their parents most likely do not have when they can actually be pursuing their dreams and working on turning it into a reality. That is the precise reason that he created the Thiel Fellowship Grant. He caters to the need for instant gratification of the prideful students, forgetting the fact that these are still young people barely out of their teens and without the proper training nor guidance to succeed in their adult endeavors in their current status. That ripening of their minds and ability to manage their lives and professional careers comes with the completion of a college degree. However, Claire Miller (Miller, Claire “Drop Out , Start Up”) explains that these kids do not understand what they are getting themselves into: For those who drop out — and fail to get a start-up off the ground — giving up college can hurt. Unemployment for those with just a high school diploma is 21 percent. And college has countless benefits even for out-of-box thinkers, from networking opportunities to learning practical skills that apply to starting companies. Her point is further proven by the story of John Burnham, whose prolific minds leads him down the road to various grant ideas that have been bankrolled by the Thiel Fellowship but have failed to become a solid reality for him. Burnham is a clear example of a prideful student who will never know when he should quit, nor will he understand the importance of a college education because grants like Thiel's encourages him to constantly go after his pipe dream because maybe, just maybe, he will come across an idea that will actually work in the future. Although the fellowship provides us with some successful names such as Eden Full and James Proud, two college age students who decided to forgo college in exchange for the pursuit of their dreams and ambitions, since someone was willing to fund it after all, the reality of their situation is that without a real college education, they will be unable to cope with the later problems and challenges that will face them in the world that they have chosen to thrust themselves into. Nothing will beat a proper college education, regardless of the expense entailed when it comes to dealing with real world and real business issues. The perfect world for the prideful students of today should strike a balance between their need for instant gratification at school, while learning real world lessons by becoming part of the workforce. This would create the perfect blend of gratification and life experience that any full time or even part time enrolled college student can benefit from. As Andrew Braaksma put it (Braaksma, Andrew “Some Lessons From the Assembly Line”): There are few things as cocksure as a college student who has never been out in the real world, and people my age always seem to overestimate the value of their time and knowledge. After a particularly exhausting string of 12-hour days at a plastics factory, I remember being shocked at how small my check seemed. I couldn't believe how little I was taking home after all the hours I spent on the sweltering production floor. And all the classes in the world could not have prepared me for my battles with the machine I ran in the plant, which would jam whenever I absent- mindedly put in a part backward or upside down. College is something that students today take for granted because of the pandering that the parents and the school system pays them. Fellowship grants such as the Thiel Fellowship only serve to aggravate the problem of prideful students because such programs portray college as a waste of time and indoctrinates the youth into believing that one does not need a real college education in order to become successful in life. Having the drive and ambition to succeed is an excellent trait for any college student to have. But there are no shortcuts to success and students would be much better off in the pursuit of their dreams if they were fully equipped educationally to deal with the challenges that shall come their way. Colleges and universities will play up a student's need for immediate recognition and even be intimidated into giving students grades that they do not deserve. By spoiling the students into believing that life and success is something that they are entitled to and can easily achieve, even without a college education, rather than making success something that they should earn, people like Peter Thiel do our future achievers and leaders a great disservice and produce a never ending stream of prideful students. Works Cited Braaksma, Andrew. “Some Lessons From the Assembly Line”. The Daily Beast. Newsweek. 11 Sept 2005. Web. 6 Feb. 2013. Benton, Thomas. “The 7 Deadly Sins of Students”. Advice. The Chronicle of Higher Education. 14 Apr. 20016. Web. 7 Feb. 2013. Miller, Clair C. “Drop Out, Start Up.” Entrepreneurship: Fellowships. The New York Times. 19 Jul 2012. Web. 5 Feb. 2013. Read More