Noisy Neighbours

1. Do you live in a quiet neighbourhood? In what way is your neighbourhood different from others?

2. How much has it changed over the years? What things have changed for the better and what for the worse?

3. Do you get on with your neighbours? If you had a problem with them, who could you approach? If you report an incident of noisy behaviour, do your local police react to it?

4. Which of the following facilities would you object to being built in your neighbourhood? Order them from most to least acceptable. Why would you object to the ones you dislike most?

a new motorway

a casino

an airport

a landfill (rubbish dump, garbage dump)

a prison

a primary school

a homeless shelter

student accommodation

a centre for the treatment of drug addiction

a mosque, a synagogue or a church

a centre for teenage youths with problems

5. Are you a NIMBY? (NIMBY is the acronym for Not In My Back Yard). It describes someone who is against any kind of development in their neighbourhood. Do you have such groups in your country?

Read article here: Noisy Neighbours Reading

6. What is your reaction? 

7. If you lived in that area of Bristol, what would you do? Tell me about soundproofing, moving to a different area, appealing to the university authorities, starting a campaign on social media etc.

8. Are you surprised that Bristol universities are paying the police to patrol areas where students live?

9. Do you see a connection between bad student behaviour and private accommodation? Do you see a connection between the students' social class and their behaviour?

10. Do cities in your country have districts that are mainly for students? Who offers them accommodation - is it universities, or do private landlords provide it?

11. Do students in your country party like their UK counterparts, or are they more serious about their studies? Is this a generational problem - are the young less respectful of social norms?

12. Did your university provide a 'Guide to Community Living'? Did you read it? What guidelines were included? Did it include advice on 'hiring DJs, sound equipment and door staff'?

13. What do you understand about 'pre-loading' (paragraph 9) for party-goers? Does this play a role in bad behaviour? What measures could counter this?

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Situation

You have been appointed head of student services at Bristol University. You've called a press conference to announce new measures against late-night noise, and you're updating the 'Guide to Community Living'. Answer any questions from the awaiting journalists (your teacher).

..........

Discuss quotes

“No man should live where he can hear his neighbour's dog bark.”

― Nathaniel Macon

“In my Paris apartment, when a neighbour drives nails into the wall at an undue hour, I "naturalise" the noise by imagining that I am in my house in Dijon, where I have a garden. And finding everything I hear quite natural, I say to myself: "That's my woodpecker at work in the acacia tree." This is my method for obtaining calm when things disturb me.”

― Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space

“People don't want to listen to their thoughts, so they fill the world with noise.”

― Erin Entrada Kelly, Hello, Universe

“Every song may be someone else's personal implement of torture.”

― Francine Prose, Goldengrove

Student Handout PDF: Noisy Neighbours

My Generation

1. What do you admire/dislike about younger/older generations?

2. How do the following elements manifest themselves in discussions about young and old people?

- unskilled yet proud

- a desire to change/'fix' other people

- wisdom

- culture shock

- technology

3. As a young person, did you ever hear something like "When I was your age,..."? Who said it, what did they say exactly? 

4. Have you read Ivan Turgenev's 'Fathers and Sons', Arthur Miller's 'Death of a Salesman', or Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice'? How are generational differences exploited in these novels? Do you know any other novels which highlight the differences between generations?

5. Have there been any periods of time when the gap between young and old has increased? (I'm thinking of the 60/70s in the US) Does the gap shrink/increase in accordance with other socio-economic factors? Can you think of any examples?

Read the article here: My Generation Reading

6. Do you agree with the author when he says it's fear of being replaced that makes the older generation criticise the young?

7. The author cites several historical examples of 'youth hating' from the past, is this because the generation gap is a cyclical phenomenon? Can you imagine a time when it didn't happen?

8. The UK (and the US, I guess) have both had a series of distinct teenage 'movements' (teddy boys, punks, mods, rockers, skinheads etc), and these all started after WW2. Was post-WW2 a 'watershed moment' for teenagers in your country?

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Situation

You are a leading sociologist doing research into generational differences. Your research has indicated that there isn't any evidence to suggest that the current generation is any better/worse than previous generations. You do, however, believe that  there are changes in opinion which occur over a lifetime. This leads to twenty-year-olds being more narcissistic than fifty-year-olds, and older people misremembering their youth.

You've been invited on to a radio show to expound on your theories and answer questions from the host (your teacher).

..........

Discuss quotes

“For the first half of your life, people tell you what you should do; for the

second half, they tell you what you should have done.”

--- Richard Needham

"Every generation revolts against its fathers and makes friends with its grandfathers."

--- Lewis Mumford

“Wisdom doesn’t necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up all by itself.”

--- Tom Wilson

“It is fortunate that each generation does not comprehend its own ignorance. We are thus enabled to call our ancestors barbarous."

--- Charles Dudley Warner

"Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late."

--- Thomas Sowell

“In youth we run into difficulties; in old age difficulties run into us.”

--- Josh Billings

Student Handout here: My Generation

Photo: Eva Elijas