Been a high school teacher for 5 years (not music) and I can say the Kids HAVE NOT CHANGED.......The Parents have....
We're not omnipotent. Just saying.
Our kids are bombarded with conflicting messages, from parents, school, other kids, the electronic media, and so forth. Some messages from school:
You are proficient when you are not, because the state has lowered the proficiency standards in response to "accountability."
This homework is important when it is a year or two below your grade level, because we are cramming for the standardized test.
We can't completely isolate our kids from negative or substandard expectations. We don't have billions of dollars to design messages that compete with the captivating and exciting messages of commercial media.
But we do our best. We are as aware as anybody about the folklore surrounding the young generation. Some of us are academics, or have been teachers. Clearly, we don't want our kids to become self-entitled brats -- that would go against basic self preservation. Why would I want my kids to be irresponsible? We talk with other parents about raising our kids. We pressure the schools to raise standards. We (at least in Madison WI) support funding referenda to keep the schools open.
We taught our kids to read. We tutor them in math and science, and take them to classical music lessons -- possibly the largest source of employment for musicians in my locale. We are aware of global standards for education because we live in a community with a lot of immigrant parents.
There are some influences that we don't even understand, such as genetics and the chemical environment. Why do more kids have ADHD? Is it even real? Should we drug them into a stupor for the convenience of their teachers?
And I have to admit that I wasn't perfect when I was a kid. I depended on the safety net provided by my family, and perhaps by a more laid back society. I didn't pay a dime for my education. I had the luxury to choose a career that I enjoy, rather than try to guess which career will make me employable.
Part of telling our kids that they are "special" is a backlash against our own childhood experiences, when kids were "labeled" and subjected to lowered expectations. So the logic goes that if kids can be beaten down by lower expectations, they can be raised up by higher expectations. That could be right or wrong, but it's what we are trying, and when we find out that it's wrong, it will be too late.
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