It’s all too easy for those of us who’ve grown up with our phones glued to our faces to ignore this thing called “classroom bias.”
While millennials are considered the most studied generation, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, we are also most apt to quickly switch tasks, are overly self-confident, and are often self-absorbed.
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How does a generation like this weather a higher education system that’s barely tailored to such characteristics? And perhaps more pressing, how do many millennials cope with a blatantly liberal-leaning agenda in the classroom?
Many of us 80-some-million millennials cope with bias by rolling our eyes, taking it with a grain of salt, or by simply overlooking it. While some speak out, many more do not realize they’re experiencing bias at all. Class is over, and it’s time to move on to the next thing.
In the process of dismissing radical claims, we often subconsciously reassure ourselves that it was just the teacher’s personality trait, the course description, or the way things were back then. And in many cases, we blame ignorance for the uncomfortable feeling that a biased classroom creates — ignorance on the professor’s part or ignorance on ours. After all, ignorance is bliss, right?
Bias and ignorance go hand in hand. But again, on to the next thing: our ringing cellphone, our six Facebook notifications, or Taco Tuesday.
Wrong. Bias and ignorance go hand in hand. But again, on to the next thing: our ringing cellphone, our six Facebook notifications, or Taco Tuesday.
Paul Harvey, a professor of business and economics at the University of New Hampshire, conducted a study that concluded millennials have “unrealistic expectations and a strong resistance towards negative feedback.”
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As the age-old saying goes, “the truth hurts.” Perhaps, again, this is why millennials are slow to challenge their educators in uncomfortable discourse.
Those who want millennials to grab hold of left-wing thought are now entering the short attention-span arenas where millennials interpret their worldview. Millennials’ main sources of news are television at 65 percent and the Internet at 59 percent. Eighty percent of us sleep with our cellphone next to the bed or under our pillow.
A great example was the recent White House-generated meme aimed at convincing millennials to support the Iran Deal. Yes, you read correctly — an online cartoon otherwise known as a meme.
However ridiculous this may sound, millennials are swayed to form opinions based on the frivolous. While this is the information age, it is also a fast-paced world. Opinions are formed from Snapchat stories, Internet jokes, and celebrity Twitter feeds.
Remember, Kanye West is running for president of the United States in 2020, and Kim Kardashian, a reality TV star most famous for her raunchy sex tape released in 2007, was the headliner earlier this summer at a prestigious educational forum in San Francisco.
Whether you blame the actual students or the environment around us, American millennials are uniquely tailored to ignore bias in the classroom and are instead led astray by the bits and pieces of the digital world.
In a society in which a college education is supposed to mean so much, students dodge limitless information and prefer the 10-second Snapchat. Perhaps the best way to combat bias is not in the classroom, but rather the short-term digital space in which millennials dwell.
Zachary Letourneau is a sophomore at Pennsylvania State University. This piece is part of a CampusZette series exploring the culture, oddities, and experiences of students on college campuses through their eyes.
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