Newsflash?: Stories are breaking across the news today that students study less than an hour a day (I learned that a Brookings Institute study is responsible from Dennis Jerz' Literacy Weblog). I'm not surprised by this; a number of entering freshman in my experience often seem to either lack basic study skills or otherwise are apathetic toward schoolwork. The Irascible Professor tied this trend to grade inflation trends earlier this year, based on the CIRP.

Ironically, this runs contrary to the view of the Millennials I reported last night. Are today's students "achieving" or are they "sheltered"? The contradiction between these elements is producing a sort of schizophrenia that spins on a disjunction between means (work) to ends (the spoils of success). I can't tell if this is really anything new, except it may very well be the case that Millennials love to work in teams and probably don't see intellectual work as important as compared with other forms of labor which get the greenbacks. If commercial culture keeps de-emphasizing education, it will only get worse, and schools may very well become obsolete. Don't believe me? Ever see an abandoned schoolhouse? I drive past one in my town almost every day.

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