Lendol Calder is a professor of history at Augustana College, Rock Island, IL., and the “professor of the year” in the state of Illinois.
His observation about students:
“Students today are like adventure tourists walking through a jungle,” says Lendol.
“‘Nothing here but trees and grass,’ says the student while their guide shouts ‘Look! There’s a tiger in the grass!’
Except that young people today don’t have guides. They have iPods, they have cable TV, they have each other. But no real guides.
We may be the first society in human history to create a cultural environment in which the young are turned loose in the world without benefit of the wisdom of elders telling them how to find a vocation, how to find a mate, how to make love last.
Cut off from adults and entombed in their peer culture, they are expected to make maps of their own. No wonder they don’t have time to read and prepare for class. They’re too busy trying to figure out how life works.”
from InterVarsity alumni news: Lendol Calder
My response: Students are hungry for wisdom and guidance.
HOWEVER: You have to earn their trust, first. That takes some doing.
