"Thinking 'Bigger Than Me' in the Liberal Arts" by Steven Tepper

In the article Thinking ‘Bigger Than Me’ in the Liberal Arts by Steven Tepper, the generation of today’s youth is shown to have changed incredibly over time. As years have passed, we see that youth have become more self-centered and less conscious about others outside of our self. An example of this shown in the article is the name given to the people of this era; “IWWIWWIWI (I Want What I Want When I Want It)”people (Teppler). The point of the article was to show how art has changed this perception from “me” to the “bigger than me” mentality by showing intermingling students with other students who are very different than themselves so that they can understand that not everyone thinks, acts, and lives the way they do. By using art, students are able to step outside of their box of “me” to understand how and issue/idea/topic affects everyone else in a bigger picture.

My questions:

• How can we change learning without using art to change the “me” mindsets in other classrooms?

• Is it fair to categorize an entire generation as self centered the way Tepper does in this article?

• Is this issue targeted to the attention of teachers so that they will change the way they teach or to the students to become more self aware of their “me” mentality?