"What happens when current 3rd and 4th graders turn 18?"

"Coming into this year, I thought that 2nd graders were the furthest behind in terms of social development and academic skills. As a happy surprise, I have seen a lot of growth over the year.... 3rd and 4th grade, however, are an absolute shit show.... There are always a few but in some sections I have like 50%+ of students who are indifferent to learning, unashamed of their antisocial behaviors, and truly unpleasant to spend time with.... [When given free time, t]hey will do play like kindergarteners or 1st graders. I watch them play and just feel sad. They feel like broken kids I cannot fix. I worry about what will happen when they become adults in 2032-33...."

From a post that begins a discussion on the subreddit r/Teachers.

"Your 7-year-old has perfectly captured the zeitgeist of the moment. Righting wrongs — and there are always more than enough to choose from — is virtuous..."

"... if sometimes humorless. But inventing infractions merely to put people in the wrong is not." 

The advice columnist "Miss Manners" answers a woman whose daughter chided her for using the automatic door button when she is not disabled.

The words "Your 7-year-old has perfectly captured the zeitgeist of the moment" feel humorous, and I hope the girl has a frivolous foible that she will outgrow. Or maybe she has a sense of humor and the mother is the humorless one who's overly afflicted by the zeitgeist. But it's terrifying to think that Generation Alpha is going to be grimly looking for meaningless micro-offenses.

I've said it before — I'm investing my hope in the babies — "those who will be born over the next 5 years, and kids up to the age of 10": "What are these people going to be like — after living through the lockdown and witnessing the heightened, hysterical, hypocritical empathy of the millennials." I said: "I was hoping they rebel against the prudery and the repression of the millennials."

But what if they lean into the worst tendencies of the millennials and Gen Z?

"Overall, cancel culture is quite unpopular among all cohorts, with each generation viewing it more negatively than positively."

"Millennials appeared to be most supportive of cancel culture: 19 percent said they had a positive view of it, while 22 percent were neutral, 36 percent were opposed to it, and 22 percent said they had no opinion. ... Gen Z was the cohort most opposed to cancel culture: 55 percent said they had a negative view of cancel culture, 8 percent were supportive of it, 18 percent were neutral, and 19 percent had no opinion. Moreover, it’s the youngest cohort within Gen Z—currently ages 13 to 16—who are most opposed to cancel culture, with 59 percent having a negative view of it.... Gen Z... has grown up immersed in the internet and social media. To them, the barrier between what’s personal and what’s public is fluid, and many Americans of this age don’t find it particularly unusual to broadcast everyday life and thoughts to the entire world. A puritanical mindset that seeks to persecute people over the expression of their beliefs is hard to reconcile with a world where so much of what was once private is now public.... Gen Z has first-hand knowledge of this Panopticon-like environment and how suffocating it can be." 

Writes Zaid Jilani in "The End of "Cancel Culture"?/Young Americans may return us to a culture of compassion and forgiveness" (Persuasion)(relying on a Morning Consult poll).

Gen Z... and don't forget the Alphas... or, as I call them, the babies. I'm counting on the babies to save the world. 

"The term Generation Alpha is usually credited to Mark McCrindle, a generational researcher in Australia who... told me that the name originated from an online survey he ran in 2008..."

"... that yielded a slew of now-discarded monikers, many of which focused on technology (the 'Onliners,' 'Generation Surf,' the 'Technos') or gave the next round of humans the burden of undoing the damage done by the last (the 'Regeneration,' 'Generation Hope,' the 'Saviors,' 'Generation Y-not'). One popular option from the survey was 'Generation A,' but, McCrindle told me in an email, he thought the name for a cohort that would shape the future shouldn’t 'be labelled by going back to the beginning.' So once the Latin alphabet was exhausted, he hopped over to the Greek one—'the start of something new.' A consensus has formed around Generation Alpha, but it may be a temporary one. The generic 'Generation [Letter]' format began with Generation X. 'It was meant to be a placeholder for something a bit uncertain or mysterious, almost like X in some algebraic equation,' [sociology professor Dan] Woodman told me. Generation Y followed, though it was usurped, at least in the U.S., by Millennials; nothing has overthrown Generation Z. Placeholder names, in a way, make generational generalizations easier. 'They’re almost like empty labels that you can put anything in,' Woodman said. He thinks Generation Alpha will stick for at least a little while, but can also see how it might get replaced by something 'a little more descriptive.' The history of generational labeling is littered with names that gained some traction, but not enough. Gen X has been referred to as 'Baby Busters,' the 'slacker generation,' 'latchkey kids,' and the 'MTV Generation,' though the placeholder won out. The same, so far, has been the case for Gen Z, whose proposed alternate names include 'iGeneration,' the 'Homeland Generation,' 'Multi-Gen,' 'Post Gen,' and the 'Pluralistic Generation.'" 

From "Oh No, They’ve Come Up With Another Generation Label/How much do members of “Generation Alpha,” or any generation, really have in common?" in The Atlantic — but that was back last February. Now we could consider Generation Covid, as these poor kids are getting a big chunk of their childhood distanced and muted. It's making them different, and we'll see how they turn out.

I looked up that article because I mentioned Generation Alpha in the podcast yesterday. I was hoping they rebel against the prudery and the repression of the millennials. I said I was talking to them, talking to "babies." Are they they babies of America right now, these people I'm investing my hopes in? Yeah! Babies, those who will be born over the next 5 years, and kids up to the age of 10. What are these people going to be like — after living through the lockdown and witnessing the heightened, hysterical, hypocritical empathy of the millennials.