After reading my friend, Emily's, blog about being a "Milennial" I wanted to know more. I found a great article on CBS News discussing the nature of this particular generation, of which I happen to belong. Many of the descriptors are dead on and remind me of my students. I'm not sure to which generation they would belong.
Milennnials are people born between 1980 and 1995. They're characterized by their coddling parents who refuse to allow them to make mistakes or fall hard, making them a somewhat narcissitic and difficult to work with group of individuals. Milennials seem to struggle with the work force. If something is not fun or does not come easily, they feel the need to give up, switch careers, or throw in the towel.
Parents of Milennials don't want their child brudened by the stresses of life. You have homework? Do it when you get around to it. Don't stress yourself out when it's your time to be a kid. I see this attitude regularly from parents today. While I don't think it's completely wrong thinking, I do see kids who grow up without ever really understanding that choices have consequences.
For example, today we collected and graded an assignment from Friday. Several students had not completed it for homework and we're floored when I told them it was game time, some credit was better than none. They wanted a chance to redo, turn it in late, or make up the missed points with extra credit. Have our students learned that there's always a bail out? Why work hard the first time around when you know that the teacher will let you redo. While I wholeheartedly believe students need multiple opportunities to succeed and I never want to become the sinister teacher who gives the pop quiz in class for the "told you so" effect when she knows the students have not made an effort to finish the reading, I do want my students to be effectiver workers, curious learners, and understand that every choice comes with a consequence. They're learning Newton's laws in science right now, and I keep coming back to the law that states, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
If only they could grasp this concept. I wouldn't get the blank stares and near tears when I hold them accountable.
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4 comments:
Great post...I do see alot of kids now a days that seem to think their entitled to soo many things without working for it. It's sad but true.
I couldn't agree more. my best friend just had a baby 8 months ago and that baby is ridiculously coddled to the point where I don't even like going over there anymore because she cries allllllllll the time. Todays children just expect way too much and it's my main goal in life to make sure my children are nothing like that. That will be 3 less people in the world who will expect something for nothing. My little brother always wants something for nothing. He thinks he can just say hey I want a new video game and BAM my moms going to the store to get it. Unfortunately that's exactly the case.
I couldn't agree more!
I really worry about the state of the USA with all these Milennial childern that don't have the drive to guide and grow this country back to what it was when I was kid. I blame the coddling parents for all of it. What will it be like when Milennial kid have there own children? Will it be the end of the world as we know it????? I hope not, but I sure see signs of it everywhere I go. I say go ahead and be the responsible teacher and make those little spoiled children accountable.
Socrates said it best "The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."
It all went to heck when we replaced a swat on the Butt for a time out in front of the TV.
Bring back the nuns who used to hit us! Corporal punishment was sometimes a good thing, especially with 50!! kids in a classroom. It was definitely the baby boom.
Geri
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