I teach college students every day who were born in the mid 1980s. It is frustrating and also rewarding. I and my peers often find them lacking in skills that we think they should have picked up by High School (spelling of basic words, ability to write an essay, etc.). I agree that many K-12 school systems lower their standards.

But I want to speak in defense of the kids too. I think few are lazy. Many of them will work hard, but often their experiences leave them unfocused and unprepared. Many students work part time, have family commitments, and have very fractured lives. For a student who has taken on-line courses, often communtes, has flex jobs, and often works on school assignments at 2 am, it is difficult to even imagine the requirements of an 8-5 job.

Many students carry all their work in a backpack to use at the library, student union, computer labs, etc. I doubt if they have a clue about how to keep a desk, much less work in one place throughout the day. Mind you, I have two desks in my office, cluttered with books, notes, and projects. I probably couldn't keep a professional desk either.

I see the major problem being that students have been trained since preschool to be consumers rather than producers. Many students come to college with the expectation that they are buying the degree that they need to get a job. The idea that they are only buying the opportunity to learn can be difficult to grasp. They can be resentful of having to take classes that do not directly relate to their careers. You have to convince them that they are learning something that they need. This is something I work on every year, as I forget that what I see as obvious is not to them.

If you want them to behave and dress in certain ways, I think you have to approach them as consumers first. You have to 'sell' them on the idea of why they should behave in certain ways. Schools today do not instill that older form of discipline in which people take orders without question. In some ways that is not a bad thing. Gen Xers or Yers or whatever aren't dumb, but they do think of the world in a very different way from Boomers.