The Portable Generation

“What are they like?” Because I teach and because the college at which I teach, Sarah Lawrence, has a reputation for being experimental, I am constantly asked this question about my students. Most of the time I resist answering. I am suspicious of any generalization I am likely to make, and I sense that the people who raise that question secretly look on me not as a teacher but as a human zoo keeper—an authority on an exotic species I am empowered to keep under control from Sept...