Oh, so this is why Bernie Sanders wants everyone to go to college for free.

Needless to say, not only is what's happening frightening, but as the article points out, it doesn't seem like it is going to get better and in fact is going to start infecting the workspace.

Beginning of the end I fear.

It's interesting that, even though teachers everywhere (Cassandras, I suppose) were trying, more than 40 years ago, to warn parents that coloring books are not good even for KIDS, the business seems to be doing as well as ever. (The books are said to be bad for kids' imaginations, for what should be obvious reasons. This warning even got mentioned in the 1975 book "Ramona the Brave"; Ramona's mother won't get her a coloring book, so Ramona designs one of her own, even though she doesn't enjoy filling in the spaces as much as she expected.)

In the meantime, there are also "Anti-Coloring Books," which I suspect would sell better if someone would come up with a more positive-sounding title. (The pages are mostly blank, but the IDEAS for the drawings are stated.)

would sell better if someone would come up with a more positive-sounding title

How about "Free Range Coloring Book"?

I would just buy a ream of card stock paper, a box of crayons (and/or a box of colored pencils) and hand the little tyke 10 pages. Let 'em go hog wild.

I was just thinking about Ramona the Pest the other day, when someone gave my kid a coloring book. She loves them, I think they're fine as long as that isn't the only art she is doing... and it isn't. But I still felt guilty as I remembered Mrs. Quimby's awesome parenting.

Well, more than one person has pointed out that at least ONE part of the 1968 "Ramona the Pest" isn't realistic - the last chapter just goes on and on when a real disciplinarian would have simply let her know she'd be REALLY sorry if she ever repeated her bad behavior - and sent her back to school. (There are similar contrived lapses of discipline by Mrs. Quimby in the Henry Huggins books too.) But then, I remember Cleary's once saying that one cardinal rule of her books is that her characters never really change within one book, presumably so as to say to the child reader: "It's OK to live in the here and now instead of having to self-reform all the time."

That said, I'd guess that some kids - and young parents - might be shocked by just how little "attention" Ramona gets. That is, Cleary obviously respects little kids' perspectives - and their intelligence - but she still refuses to make the adults revolve around Ramona or any other child in the ways that so many adults do today. (One such good scene is in "The Substitute," Chapter 4, when the female principal gives the miserable Ramona only a minimum of sympathy and no real attention other than taking her back to class, since she gets plenty of attention from her surprised classmates, after all.) Ramona, ultimately, is expected to revolve around the wishes of adults, whether misunderstandings between them and her have been cleared up or not. This is even reflected in the book's title, when you think about it! I.e., the adults are not made to look foolish just to make Ramona look better, nor does Cleary allow Ramona to seethe with contempt for adults, unlike quite a few characters from Judy Blume's world.

As a Dean for a small private college, I can honestly state that if an environment of accountability is set up from the beginning, then these arrogant anti-free speech children on campus who haven't quite grown up yet are the exception rather than the norm.

It also stands to reason that when these children have no skin in the game (so to speak), and they're able to simply fill out some forms to pay for college, they don't quite value the education they should be receiving in return. Just looking for the next kegger this weekend, and then during the week they can protest against "things" (like, uhhhhh..... liberty) and thus, they receive the false impression that they're being productive citizens.

"Related: Not surprisingly, "adult" coloring books are increasingly popular on campuses."

Man! I really don't respect these "adults". No BOOBIES? Even pirates know "adult" means BOOBIES!

I was in college for awhile at San Francisco State, a few years after the riots in the late 60s. Free speech was not popular then, either; if you were not in step with the prevailing attitudes, you were shut down. Mostly by other students.

It has gotten worse (no surprise); possibly because now the children and grandchildren of the people I was at college with are either teachers or students and have moved the idiocy farther along.

Ha, episode from my childhood. I was 4 years old and my favourite possessions were my die-cast metal toy cars.

Now, I was my mother's first child, so she listened when a friend told her that she should encourage me to be more artistic or I would grow up stunted. So she dutifully bought some butchers paper and crayons for me.

I drew roads for the cars drive down.

As Mum describes it, she officially gave up on deciding what I should do with my life at that point. Love, support, instilling of personal responsibility, all those things, yes. Telling me what I liked - no.

I became an engineer, a useful member of society, and most of my career has been - wait for it - road and tunnel construction projects.

Ok, relevance. When I was doing my science and engineering degrees, there was a screw up between the two faculties about cross school credits. The maths department, post facto, decided that engineering maths subjects were beneath them and they wouldn't recognise them. A bunch of us were effectively stranded 3 years into study with useless subject completions. Maybe 100 of us were affected.

I'll tell you what we didn't do. There were no protests, occupations, or abuse. No one called their parents for help. Instead, a small delegation (myself included) volunteered to make appointments with deans to lay out the advice we had received on enrollment, the effort that people had put in in good faith, and ask for a review.

Problem got fixed. And it didn't even cut in to my pub time much.

Yeah, I looked. I thought "adult" coloring books would involve coloring in penises, boobs, vajayjays and various sex acts. However, it's something else entirely.

I know mpetrie98.

I mean how juvenile can you be when you don't even know what "adult" stuff should have in it.

Do you think they "know" about the birds and the bees?

I mean they do binge drink and give BJs to passed out boys (why? and then file a complaint against the boy? and the BOY gets expelled!) ("Well I guess I'm guilty your honor. I was passed out at the time so I have to go on HER word.")