Talking About their Generation / Harnessing the Power of the Millennials

Abstact: This series of Articles looks into generational gaps that are present in the school system today. While a small amount of attention is payed to the "silent" generation (those aged roughly from 65-80) the majority of the information focuses on the Boomers, the Gen-xers, and the Millenials. The article gives a general overview of how each of these generations are represented in the school system. The Boomers are (with a few leftovers from the Silent Generation) the older teachers in the school system as well as the majority of the administration. Currently, their influence over the school system has hit it's peak and is now beggining to wane. Gen xers represent the school in two primary ways. They comprise a vast amount of the teacher force in schools and are beggining to gain controll of administrative positions. This age set also impacts the school system by being the parents of todays students. The Millenials are the students we have today. Also, the oldest set of the Millenials (an age group perhaps considered a narrow gap somewhere between the gen xers and the Millenials) are just beggining to make their way into the classroom as teachers. The result is a stacking of generations that may not understand their relation to each other or even many of the truths about the other generations present in the school system. This is because each of these generations are a reaction to the generation before them. The boomers tend to be fonder of their experience as a student and they believe they received a proper education. Another characteristic of this generation is that they believed in a "parent centered" child rearing. That is to say they believed that it was best to take the desires of the parent into consideration than the wants of the child or student. The Gen xers, in response to this mindset, have become more skeptical of the world around them. They tend to question education and see the position of a teacher with less esteem than the Boomers. Individuals from this generation do in fact generally consider themselves individuals and shy away from talking about their generation as a whole. They also tend to be more insistant on a "is this best for the children" approach to decision making. The Millenials are, by contrast, a much more socially oriented generation than either of their predacesors. This group feels comfortable talking about themselves as a generation. They are also warmer about their scholastic experience than the Gen xers. They take their education seriously and think it is cool to recieve high marks. They differ from the Boomers view of education in that though they can appreciate some of the "likes" of their parents such as music and movies, they want their education to be the newest material rather than a retreival of classic knowledge. The Millenials desire a synthesis of the school system and the increasingly present technology explosion.

Reaction: This article shows the importance of remembering who we ourselves are as educators as well as who are the fellow educators around us and who our students are. Many have the perception that the current students are simply mindless, technology obsessed slackers when in fact the truth is that these youth are invested in their education but require a few alterations to traditional education. Because these youth are so inundated with technology, they know how to use it and they know how to use it well. Because of this, and their sense of identification as a generation, these students tend to be more communicative. They also excell in alternative or "e-communication" methods. For these students to perform well, they need a socioculturally structured classroom that uses the technology they are so gifted with to investigate topics that seem relevent and current.