comment on Mark Bauerlein’s criticism

First, please watch the interview if you haven’t done that yet.

During an interview Mark Bauer complains about teenager’s tendencies spending the mass of their lieftime watching TV, surfing in the internet or dealing with a limited number of technical devices. In other words, they waste their time in a tiny social world in that they are stuck in. Irritatingly, he does not give any arguments supporting his claims but excerpts from his own life, what to my mind proves nothing at all. Besides this recently mentioned thesis he states that those people want their teachers to help them breaking out of that common life. For this reason teachers should much more often rebuke their students. As a prospective teacher I would like to respond to this statement, I clearly disagree with. In my view students want their teachers to encourage them to learn that there are many things which are worth being engaged in, but definitely do not want to be dispraised. That is, constant reproach causes stubbornness whereas a motivation stimulates. To illustrate this point, Robert Steinhäuser known as the person running amok in Erfurt had a bad relationship to his teachers, too, which was one reason he found no nonviolent way out of his social world. The example must not be generalized but for me it serves as an illustration for my firm conviction that rebuking students in order to show them another way of living will not crowned with success.

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