The 2019 Mindset List

The 2019 Mindset List August 18, 2015

Beloit College has published its latest “Mindset List” – a list of things that characterize this year’s incoming freshmen. One is that there has always been a Benoit Mindest List! But perhaps even more striking for many of us are these:

  • Hybrid automobiles have always been mass produced.
  • Google has always been there, in its founding words, “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible.”
  • They have never licked a postage stamp.
  • Email has become the new “formal” communication, while texts and tweets remain enclaves for the casual.
  • Hong Kong has always been under Chinese rule.
  • Cell phones have become so ubiquitous in class that teachers don’t know which students are using them to take notes and which ones are planning a party.
  • Their parents have gone from encouraging them to use the Internet to begging them to get off it.
  • Teachers have always had to insist that term papers employ sources in addition to those found online.
  • Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic have always been members of NATO.
  • Humans have always had implanted radio frequency ID chips—slightly larger than a grain of rice.
  • TV has always been in such high definition that they could see the pores of actors and the grimaces of quarterbacks.

Click through for the rest of the list. Do these surprise you? For educators, how must we approach our task differently in light of the things that these students take for granted which we do not?


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