What does it mean to be an American? It’s the kind of high school essay question that brings to mind those lofty notions of freedom and liberty. But that would be so 1961—and today’s students are not all focused on what they can do for their country. To wit, in a recent study conducted by Stanford education professor William Damon, in which students were asked what American citizenship means to them, some of the responses include:

“We just had that the other day in history. I forget what it was.”