Saturday, March 8, 2008

Narcissism?

Last July I posted a reflection of a current dialogue about pervasive narcissism amongst the younger generation. I was concerned that these discussions held the potential to widen the gap between faculty and students. In my post, I mischaracterized the opinions of Suzanne Crawford and I'd like to extend an apology for this. Her article, "I, Me, Mine on Steroids: Are Today's Young People More Narcissistic?" ends on an ambivalent note that I should have read as a thought provoking twist to the rigid positions I had been exposed to before writing my post. Instead, I didn't and, shamefully, I assumed Crawford was among those who are labeling our students as narcissistic for embracing the expressive, personalized culture in which they live. Now that I've reread the article with this new perspective, I appreciate Crawford's efforts to extend this conversation with an interest in provoking dialogue amongst faculty.

1 comment:

Barry Brown said...

I read that article the same way you did: the vasty majority of it takes the tone of a teacher who is disappointed at the attitudes of her students. Although the last couple of paragraphs present an alternative view, I wonder why the article didn't take this ambivalent stance from the start.