Mindset List 2014

Next week my daughter has orientation for her junior year of high school. This week the folks at Beloit College in Wisconsin got their professors ready for another year by issuing the latest edition of their "Mindset List."

It's an attempt to educate the teachers on the cultural perspective of the freshman entering college this fall.

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BELOIT MINDSET LIST, 2014

Most students entering college this fall were born in 1992.

Few in the class will know how to write well in cursive.

E-mail is just too slow and they seldom, if ever, use "snail mail."

"Caramel macchiato" and "Venti half-caf vanilla latte" has always been street corner lingo.

In a country where a quarter of young people under 18 have at least one immigrant parent, they aren't afraid of immigration ... unless it involves "real" aliens from another planet.

John McEnroe has never played professional tennis.

Clint Eastwood is better known as a sensitive director than as Dirty Harry.

Doctor Kevorkian has never been licensed to practice medicine.

Colorful lapel ribbons have always been worn to indicate support for a cause.

Korean cars have always been a staple on American highways.

Fergie is a pop singer, not a princess.

They never twisted the coiled handset wire aimlessly around their wrists while chatting on the phone.

Unless they found one in their grandparent's closet, they have never seen a carousel of Kodachrome slides.

Computers have never lacked a CD-ROM disk drive.

"Viewer Discretion" has always been an available warning on TV shows.

The first home computer they touched was probably an Apple II or a Mac II ... they are now in a museum.

Czechoslovakia has never existed.

Second-hand smoke has always been an official carcinogen.

Once they got through security, going to the airport has always resembled going to the mall.

Adhesive strips have always been available in varying skin tones.

Bud Selig has always been the Commissioner of Major League Baseball.

American companies have always done business in Vietnam.

Russians and Americans have always been living together in space.

There have always been women priests in the Anglican Church.

Rock bands have always played at presidential inaugural parties.

"Barney" has always referred to a purple dinosaur and not Barney Google or Barney Fife.

They have never worried about a Russian military strike on the U.S.

The Post Office has always been going broke.

The nation has never approved of the job Congress is doing.

They have always had the SciFi (SyFy) Channel.

[selected - with some very small edits - from Beloit College; the entire list is here]

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WISDOM for YOUR WEEK: "All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever." (1 Peter 1:24)

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