Many of these twixters, quickly realize that they do not want to be defined by their job, but inescapably look to their jobs to provide them with some sense of purpose. Twixters are continually plagued by questions such as: Who am I, how do I fit in? Where am I going in life? As they explore their adulthood or pre-adulthood world, they desperately try to establish their own identity. However, many of them are finding that they face identity confusion. Nearly one hundred years ago, this identity-role obstacle was thought to be faced by adolescents. Today, we are seeing this same obstacle being faced nearly a decade later in development. This only lends more credence to the premise, that children are maturing more slowly. This does not mean that children are more immature than their counterparts generations prior. This simply means that as the world is in flux, it is difficult for children, teens and twixters to acclimate. There is a bizarre complementarity between comfort and insecurity, typified by today’s society. “College means comfort – and when [twentysomethings] graduate, the stability and security developed in school seems to drop out from under [them]” (Robbins, 104).
As technology and affluence offers more comfort, it, ironically, also gives a false sense of security. According to Alexandra Robbins and Abby Wilner in their work, Quarterlife Crisis: the Unique Challenges of Life in Your Twenties, twentysomethings feel a sense of security within their insecurities. As they realize the comfort of college will disappear after graduation, these twentysomethings bond with one another over this shared, common experience. Each of them has the same needs and as such, they continue to support one another and spend more and more time together. These surrogate family groups offer support and security, that cannot be found in their families. There is a sense that the twentysomething must go it alone, because the generations beforehand went through these rites of passages at an earlier age (Robbins, 99). They are isolated sociologically. In many ways, by delaying the pressure to mature or to “grow up,” society has done a great disservice to these twixters. Society expects the twixter to grow up, but not completely. There is another sense of complementarity here – the twixter should mature, but doesn’t quite have too. This is the same as Bohr’s A is A, but sometimes not A. This leaves the twixter at an impasse, and often the twixter is ill-equipped because of institutional structures that that twixter is a product of. “Twentysomethings frequently have the unshakable belief that this is the time during which they have to nail down the meaning in their lives, which explains why they often experience a nagging feeling that somehow they need to make their lives more fulfilling” (Robbins, 9).
The question becomes: is this the role of education? Should education be supporting students to find this meaning? If we agree with Daniel H. Pink that meaning, purpose, narrative and empathy are the crucial assets of the contemporary marketplace, then education must play some role. Robbins and Wilner argue that “higher education [has] hardly prepared [the twentysomethings] for the decisions they will have to make and the ways in which they will have to learn to support themselves” (Robbins, 8).
Robbins and Wilner’s issue with higher education is echoed by Parker J. Palmer, Arthur Zajonc, and Megan Scribner in their work: The Heart of Higher Education: a Call to Renewal. Like Robbins and Wilner’s book, The Heart of Higher Education: a Call to Renewal relies on personal anecdotes, conversations and personal experiences to dig deep into this need for meaning. Palmer and Zajonc boldly claim that not only does education need to provide support for the nurturing and development of personal meaning in the student’s life, but the way in which to accomplish this is by scrapping the convention and instituting integrative education. Robbins and Wilner quote one of their case studies, who says, “I proved to myself that what really matters most for my happiness is to follow my heart, no matter how crazy it sounds, and trust everything will work out” (Robbins, 152). Palmer and Zajonc express a sense of duty to help students, like the one interviewed by Robbins and Wilner, along this journey of self-identity. Throughout their work, Palmer and Zajonc criticize higher education for its neglect of soulfulness – the most important task of a university is to engage students in actively discussing and exploring the purpose and meaning of their lives (Palmer, 122). Palmer and Zajonc found that over two-thirds of students hoped that their undergraduate education would offer them a chance to develop a sense of “what life is for” – personal values, self-understanding, and reasons for the way the world works (Palmer, 116).
These tasks are completely disregarded, ignored, or worse, avoided. In The Heart of Higher Education: a Call to Renewal, three reasons are identified for this shortcoming, drastically impacting twixter-students: 1) a mechanistic view of reality rooted in outdated and irrelevant systems, 2) arbitrary delineations between knowledge classes and biased notions of content, and 3) an economic model of ethics based on cost-effectiveness (Palmer, 31 – 33).
references
1. Rimer, Sara. "Study: Many College Students Not Learning to Think Critically." The Hechinger Report January 18 (2011). Print. Teachers College, Columbia University
2. Pink, Daniel H. A Whole New Mind: Why Right-brainers Will Rule the Future. New York: Riverhead, 2006. Print.
3. Peat, F. David. From Certainty to Uncertainty: the Story of Science and Ideas in the Twentieth Century. Washington, D.C.: Joseph Henry, 2002. Print.
4. “Grow up? Not so fast,” By Lev Grossman. Time, January 16, 2005.
5. Robbins, Alexandra, and Abby Wilner. Quarterlife Crisis: the Unique Challenges of Life in Your Twenties. New York: J.P. Tarcher/Putnam, 2001. Print.
6. Palmer, Parker J., Arthur Zajonc, and Megan Scribner. The Heart of Higher Education: a Call to Renewal. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2010. Print.
7. Shoemaker, Jean Eklund, and Larry Lewin. "Curriculum and Assessment: Two Sides of the Same Coin." The Changing Curriculum Number 8 50.May 1993 (1993): 55-57. Print.
8. Fiero, Gloria K. Landmarks in Humanities. Boston: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2009. Print.
9. Tufte, Edward. "PowerPoint Is Evil; Power Corrupts. PowerPoint Corrupts Absolutely." Wired Sept. 2003. Print. Issue 11.09
10. Reynolds, Garr. Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery. Berkeley, CA: New Riders Pub., 2008. Print.
11. Reynolds, Garr. "Storytelling Lessons from Bill Cosby." Rev. of Keynote Speeches and Comedic Career. Web log post. Presentation Zen. Garr Reynolds, 28 June 2011. Web. 30 June 2011.
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