Friday, September 4, 2009

Beloit College Mindset List for the Class of 2013

This is slightly off topic but still somewhat relevant since one of SurLaLune's primary audiences is students. Their teachers are another primary audience.

The Beloit College Mindset List for has been published every year since 1998, since the year I started SurLaLune as a grad student as a matter of fact. The list for the Class of 2013 is now available and I wanted to share the link here.

Of particular interest here for me are:

4. They have never used a card catalog to find a book.

34. They have always been able to read books on an electronic screen.


Many of the items on the list were never a large part of my life or part of my awareness either, but the list still reminds me of the differences we face with each generation's experiences.

I might add that the Disney version of Belle and Beast surrounded by objects singing "Be My Guest" have always existed for this group, too. We might argue that all of the Disney fairy tales have always existed in their minds although Aladdin was released when they were only a year old or less. (Well, some will argue for Mulan released in 1998, but that isn't as much fairy tale as folk legend IMHO and doesn't receive the same of kind of Disney princesses treatment.)

And as yet another year of students accustomed to using the internet first for research, SurLaLune hopes to assist that work with reliable, helpful and well-organized information this school year, too.

1 comment:

  1. Well, and as a sort of adjunct to this list, today's Boston Globe ran an article on what I think has got to qualify as the Worst Idea, Ever: the MA prep school that got rid of all its books & is strictly a digital library now. (I can't get the link to copy here, but if you look at the Globe's web site, it's the #1-most-mailed story of the day.)

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