Why don't kids nowadays know about Jazz and classi

In the original post, there was a comment about some educators feeling that today's kids are smarter than previous generations. Not all educators would necessarily say that. I have known many teachers who've taught for decades and who lament the quality of today's students. One professor, who taught since the sixties, commented to me that he felt that today's students were much worse--the only area where they are better, on average, than students of yesteryear is that they have more "street smarts."

Secondly, a lack of interest in jazz and classical is nothing new--it's probably existed, to some degree, with every generation. Often, it's an image thing--classical, in particular, has the image of being for the highly cultured or whatever. My grandmother, for example, had no interest in either classical or jazz. I can remember her hearing me play a Mozart recording once when I was in high school, and she partly liked it. She asked what it was. I told her. She immediately lost interest. She wanted to hear something for "ordinary folk." I don't know what her feelings about jazz would be--but I do know that she would have a great deal of trouble accepting a black musician. The irony, I think, is that she did like some big band material that was probably influenced by jazz.