Who Cares?

This article from MSNBC.COM caught my eye yesterday. If you know anything about me, you know that I'm constantly fascinated by generational trends, those specific and sometimes unique qualities that give generations characteristics and qualities nearing personality traits. In the article, Jenna Bryner cites a major study done at the University of Michigan which found that currently enrolled college students are 40% less likely to feel empathy toward their friends than those of previous generations did.

To be sure the interpretation of this research is subjective, but the main determinative statement as to whether students show empathy was, "I sometimes try to understand my friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective." The data seem to suggest that students are less likely to agree with this statement than those of the late 1970s were.

I don't know if I really think college students today are less empathetic than those of previous generations. In many ways, I feel as if my students tend to be more empathetic and want more empathy than I was at their age, but I do see (and hear) a trend among my students that seems to support the research. The students I teach today tend to have a "if it doesn't affect me, I don't care about it" mentality about a wide range of issues and problems. One of the things I strive for in my classes is to pick issues for discussion that my students can directly relate to, and if they don't, it becomes my job to help them see how what we're discussing directly affects their lives. So, it makes sense to me, that the "who cares?" mentality they have about the economic crisis in Greece, because it seems so removed from their everyday lives, could translate to their interpersonal relationships as well.

One of the traps of suburban life, is that it's easy to think that what happens to someone else doesn't directly affect me. We can drive into our garages, close the doors, draw the blinds or curtains, and in effect, hit the Ignore button with our actions the same way we do with our mouses to a "friend" request on Facebook. In apartment buildings or small towns where "everybody knows everybody" this is harder to do. Not that the Ignore button can't be hit, not that people who live in these places don't have the same capacity not to care about their neighbors, but the above mentioned scenarios do seem to make it harder not to care.

For me this article just reinforces much of what I already thought about teaching. That part of my job is not only to present issues to my students but to also help them see why the issues we're discussing in class matter, even if the issue doesn't fall on my students' pre-made list of issues that directly affect their lives.