“The Clash Of Generations”
Dear Teachers born in the 1970s to the early 1990s, you are now the adults of today. Most of you are between 30 to 50 years of age. You are the Generation X and Y (the xennials and millenials respectively). With that age, most of you are in key positions in schools and the entire education sector. You are either school administrators or senior teachers.
You are teaching the Generation Z and Generation Alpha – these are children largely born and raised in the 2000s. Their childhood, world, skills and values are totally different from yours – you the teachers born and raised in the 1970s – early 1990s.
I write to you this letter with dissatisfaction about your laxity to adopt change. To this date, most of you have never left the 20th century. You are still forcing it on to the 21st century children. There is a clash of generations due to your smuggling of the 20th century lifestyle, skills and values wholesomely into the 21st century. Let’s delve into it.
You were born at a time when on top of walking long distances to school, you had to carry firewood to school on Monday, fresh brooms on Tuesday, reeds on Wednesday, cowdung on Thursday and sweet potato leaves and charcoal on Friday for servicing the blackboard so that it can dry through the weekend. Let me not mention the miles you used to walk to go and pick water from wells that you shared with cows. You were skilled at walking long distances, digging, tending goats and cattle for long hours and carrying heavy luggage like a donkey.
On the other hand, the children born in the 2000s have come at a time when every empty house is either a school or church. Water is either next door, in the compound or inside the house. Foods are delivered by bodabodas. Getting milk no longer requires owning a cow. Their parents provide school requirements at the start of each term – nothing else thereafter. Today’s children are skilled at navigating around gadgets – not walking miles with stuff on their heads. The world expects them to innovate solutions that match the current challenges. Hard work is now about who innovates the smartest solution – not one who does the biggest chunk of work. The world has changed. It’s you who haven’t.
During your childhood, communication was largely word of mouth. You had to ride long distances to deliver your parents’ messages to their age-mates. A few educated parents would write letters that were sent through the post office. Even the rich had to concentrate on only one television station – UTV and one landline telephone service provider. In other words, you were raised during the post office and UTV era where concentration was by force due to limited choices.
The children currently in your schools, have access to over 50 free to air local television stations, some have digital and smart televisions with access to limitless channels. They are Netflix era children. They make audio and video calls using various platforms. The too many choices leave them with little concentration. It’s not them to blame, it you who has refused to accept that their world has wired them that way. Just devise means of handling children with low concentration.
The Generation Alpha – the borns of the 2000s whom you are teaching are so different. They don’t know a life without internet. They are a digital generation. Their parents met on facebooks, conceived them on instagram, gave birth to them on whatsap and are now being raised on tiktok. At 3 years, they can ably use smart phones. They can navigate the internet much better than their parents. Instead of building on those skills, you are still focusing on seeing them do things of your generation. Help them learn coding, building of apps, creation of new software, robotics and the like. That’s what their world is and will be about.
You; my age-mates were born and I were raised in a world where children were meant to be humble. Humility meant speaking softly, never looking people in the eye, walking away from trouble, reporting when offended, greeting all those you meet on the way among others. Today’s children are encouraged to speak loudly with confidence, look people in the eye, give firm handshakes, stay firm when challenged, take on whoever offends them, avoid strangers among others. Unfortunately, schools still defines life according to the 90s since the adults in them are products of the previous century. Today, intelligence alone is not enough, you must be confident enough if you are to win.
You were born and raised at a time when the father had a special cup and plate that were always washed first and no one ever dared to use them. The father’s special chair was known by everyone and any other person sitting in it was equivalent to a murder case.. Whether boys or girls, children used to sit down.
On the other side, the children of the 2000s don’t differentiate cups and chairs of adults from theirs. They sit with their parents and eat from the same dining table. They have little or no fear for adults unlike you who used to tremble on sight of your father. That’s the order of the world they have been born in. So, they see adults differently compared to how you think they should look at you. As a teacher, don’t expect to be feared by children – instead, groom them to respect you.
You were born and raised at a time when the teacher who beat them most was the most loved by the parents in the school. Parents too used to batter children with no limit. It’s like there were no law or parents and teachers were the law themselves.
In addition to having multitudes of health complications, the children you are teaching today are openly protected by the law, come from very educated protective parents and are well aware of their rights and freedoms. Unfortunately, you still believe in physical punitive measures. The world has changed; you have refused. Sit down and think of other corrective measure rather than the whip, slaps, knocks on the head and verbal insults among others.
You were raised during the era when there was only one shop in your area. It was the era of cassette tapes and video decks. When you grew up, you were ushered into the era of call boxes mounted on walls in trading centres and scratch cards for airtime. You had to wait at the shop to be served, patiently used a pen to rewind the cassette tape, and queued at the call box to make a call – all those forcefully taught you patience.
Unlike you who used to carry coins on a string to a small shop miles away from your home as you silently sung the shopping list of three items, technology serves todays children right away. They can pay for electricity, but data, airtime, send money and a lot more even in the dead of the night. Over waiting is not part of their world. Your teaching and school systems too should adapt to giving quick instant solution and feedback.
During your childhood, learning meant sitting still like a statue and follow instructions from some authoritative adult. He was the fountain of knowledge. Today’s children expect you to introduce a topic and let them take over. Due to their early exposure, they know more than what you knew by their age. So, over listening bores them. To them, learning should be exceptionally visual and interactive. Unfortunately, you still view learning as passive and receptive. It’s time to cross to the world of your current customers born in the 2000s. Let them own the lessons.
This discussion may not end because it’s larger than anyone can imagine. It’s just important to realize and accept that evolution already took place. The world and humans are no longer the same. Children today mentally and physically mature faster than it was previously. They are more independent than ever in thought and actions. They don’t have lots of attachments to their tribes, cultures and families because they have grown up in more culturally diverse environments than we did.
Dear teachers born in the 1970s to early 1990s – my agemates, everyone has changed except most of you. You seem to be stuck in the past. Much as you got the best values and skills when growing up in the previous century, just accept the fact that the world of today has rejected most of them. They are becoming obsolete. Don’t force your childhood onto the children of this generation. Adopt the values, skills and knowledge that humans of today value and leave out those they no longer fancy lest, we are bound to be trapped in this clash of generations for years.
What do you think?
Am grateful and very pleased with the mess