Kids these days.
As Dr. Reynold Redekopp's #1 Important Idea for Pre-service Teachers states: You Are Not Like Them. In other words, you (the teacher) and them (the students) are different people. This is not to say that one is any better or smarter than the other - we are just different. We always have been and always will be.
And there are many differences. Take a walk through a high school today and compare it to what it looked like when you were there. You will find Smart Boards in the classroom, earbuds sticking through the necks of shirts, iPhones on the desks, and a lot of Justin Bieber inspired haircuts - did you know that this hairstyle is actually quite bad for your eyes? Our world is changing at an alarming rate, and schools are along for the ride.
But the environment isn't just different, the students are different as well. The upcoming generation has more information at their fingertips than ever before. Google, Twitter, and Wikipedia are all just a click away. Everything they need can be accessed in the blink of an eye. But what this generation has gained in accessibility, they have lost in patience. It seems as though students don't want to wait anymore. And why would they? They are living in a time of instant gratification. This is what Dr. Jean Twenge talks about in her book, Generation Me. This generation is confident and open-minded, but it is also entitled and demanding.
Comedian Louis CK summarizes the situation quite well and concludes, "Everything is amazing and nobody is happy." As this link opens up in a new tab (pay particular attention to 1:55 - 6:00), let it play in the background while you peruse my site. It is a video of Louis from The Conan O'Brien Show. Louis does a good job of addressing how kids these days aren't the same as us. In the past, things weren't as good and Louis feels that this was actually better. Technology has made life so good that the future generations have nothing left to complain about - so rather than just be happy, they complain about things that aren't worth complaining about.
We have come up with a name for this generation: students born during or after the introduction of digital technologies are called Digital Natives. These people don't know what life was like before the internet and smartphones, and as a result many of them have a much more solid grasp on these technologies than their seniors. For these kids, life has been fast, efficient and in their control. Life has been good, perhaps too good.
So how are we different than our students. Perhaps Louis CK puts it best:
"We live in an amazing amazing world and it's wasted on the crappiest generation of just spoiled idiots that don't care."
So we know that we are different than the students, but can we as teachers do about it? Click here to find suggestions.
And there are many differences. Take a walk through a high school today and compare it to what it looked like when you were there. You will find Smart Boards in the classroom, earbuds sticking through the necks of shirts, iPhones on the desks, and a lot of Justin Bieber inspired haircuts - did you know that this hairstyle is actually quite bad for your eyes? Our world is changing at an alarming rate, and schools are along for the ride.
But the environment isn't just different, the students are different as well. The upcoming generation has more information at their fingertips than ever before. Google, Twitter, and Wikipedia are all just a click away. Everything they need can be accessed in the blink of an eye. But what this generation has gained in accessibility, they have lost in patience. It seems as though students don't want to wait anymore. And why would they? They are living in a time of instant gratification. This is what Dr. Jean Twenge talks about in her book, Generation Me. This generation is confident and open-minded, but it is also entitled and demanding.
Comedian Louis CK summarizes the situation quite well and concludes, "Everything is amazing and nobody is happy." As this link opens up in a new tab (pay particular attention to 1:55 - 6:00), let it play in the background while you peruse my site. It is a video of Louis from The Conan O'Brien Show. Louis does a good job of addressing how kids these days aren't the same as us. In the past, things weren't as good and Louis feels that this was actually better. Technology has made life so good that the future generations have nothing left to complain about - so rather than just be happy, they complain about things that aren't worth complaining about.
We have come up with a name for this generation: students born during or after the introduction of digital technologies are called Digital Natives. These people don't know what life was like before the internet and smartphones, and as a result many of them have a much more solid grasp on these technologies than their seniors. For these kids, life has been fast, efficient and in their control. Life has been good, perhaps too good.
So how are we different than our students. Perhaps Louis CK puts it best:
"We live in an amazing amazing world and it's wasted on the crappiest generation of just spoiled idiots that don't care."
So we know that we are different than the students, but can we as teachers do about it? Click here to find suggestions.