I gained my inspiration for this article while trying to interview someone about one of their hobbies, horse riding. They had recently won a showjumping competition. However when I asked them why they rode horses (the article was a Question & Answer type script, and I needed that for clarification) they responded with a highly illuminating “Oh, whatever!”

I decided that this was probably not such a good sign, and when the interviewee proceeded to walk off I thought that it would be pointless to try and get them to elucidate further. The only thing I gained from this short-lived interview was a sense of the declining communicative abilities of the younger (my) generation. Either they drown out what someone else is saying through endless babble, or just refuse to respond.

I saw more examples of this unresponsiveness throughout the day, the most entertaining going something like this. There was a ring of students, all talking, or monologuing  at least, when another member of their group, came up to them with a “what’s up?” This was replied to with much gusto, including several grunts, muffled nothing’s and even The Sky. The member of the group looked completely unsurprised by this display of interest and promptly began his own monologue.

I also fell victim to this way of thought; answering a question of what did you do today with an insightful this and that. And that was with me concentrating on it all day. That led me back to my gain from the interview. I was lead onto thinking why do people answer like that? I mean is there a reason? After all What’s up is a perfectly legitimate question. And in the end I decided there was no cause. My personal opinion is that increased testing and discouragement from original thought, excessive amounts of trivial homework, textbook work and a decrease in classroom autonomy, and finally an increase in summative assessment have lead to this. But what are you going to do? After all, where’s the sky.