“What just happened?” I wondered as I came home from my first day at school in September, 2006. I was reeling and disoriented. Having taught math to high school students in the mid-1980’s, it was my first day teaching again after a twenty-year break. 
Instinctively, I sensed that the kids I just met in my classroom were different from those I had taught over decades earlier. But I could not put my finger on the difference. I did know, however, that if I was to survive and thrive as a teacher, I had better figure out quickly what that difference was!
Fast forward four years. The nature of the changes in students between 1985 and 2010 is starting to reveal itself. I can identify tangible observable patterns.
Based on my observations, I have classified this generational change in students as follows:
Students today
· Have greater access to far more knowledge, with far less effort
· Are less willing to make effort or struggle to gain depth of understanding.
· Tend to not respect hierarchy unless it is, in their estimation, earned by an elder, teacher, etc.
· Rely more on parental assistance than self-reliance
· Are more likely to have poor health and diet, be overweight, medicated and dull.
· Lack resources to manage stress or be resilient under pressure
· Often replace accountability and respect with deception and manipulation
· Experience interrelatedness, i.e., relationship to peers, primarily through technology
What has given me a unique perspective on these changes is the fact that I took twenty years off from teaching to study the spiritual dimensions of life (see Bio). I was not a part of the incremental shift from one generation to the next. I went AWOL from the world of family, friends and work to experience and explore the more subtle dimensions of reality. Indeed, I wanted desperately to understand how life works.
Returning to teaching was like coming back to the town you grew up in after twenty years away. Things are familiar but the changes are disorienting and curious. In contemplating these differences I have been developing some radical methods in the classroom in order to reach out to this generation. I have found many students deeply out of touch with their experience. Consequently many are deeply cynical about their ability to be free agents to affect their future. Giving them this glimpse that they have deeper, untapped resources way beyond what they believe is in them, is the biggest gift I can offer my students.
Some of the methodologies I am now using with students in my classes include meditation and character building (see classroom pictures). Students are often amazed when they discover that they can manage their stress or use their minds to discover inner resources that no one ever told them about. Simple discussions on accountability, choices, and consequences often give them a means to respond more maturely and with greater self-awareness. They are building back some of the qualities that students of prior generations had—qualities which, unbeknownst to these 21st century students, remain for them relatively undeveloped.
Please forward this blog onto other educators, friends and parents. It is an important discussion. I’ll be sharing more about my innovative work with students in upcoming blog posts. For more information about my work in the classroom you can also contact me through my website or email me.
Stay Strong,
Laurie
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Being a student of yours back in the 80′s and a mother of 4 grown children and fast becoming a grandmother of 5, I believe we should go back to basics.WE never had all the electronics to get us through life but had to use our minds,body and souls to make judgements and decisions to get us to where we are today.Good work Laurie,go forth and take them students of yours back to the basics and that way they will find themselves rather than follow the trend that is so devastating our youth of today.All the best Donna:)
Thank you for all of your responses and support. I really appreciate them.
@Cynthia – I see many instances in school as emotional and psychological knots. People are entangled within all sorts of strands and issues, trying to sort them out. Unfortunately to really sort out entanglement often requires stepping back to see the knot from afar to start with the right thread. One of the most profoundly overlooked, unrecognized or even missing threads is the art of human relationship and communication. I spend a lot of time trying to establish a sense of safety for kids to take risks. Sharon’s work sounds interesting. Please feel free to forward this blog to her Cynthia. Thanks for your response.
@James – I agree kids are facing greater uncertainty, as are their parents. You are also right that within that they have to learn to manage themselves in order to respond brightly to life. I do believe evolution has equipped them to adapt to the crisis of the 21st Century but they need to access that potential. Thanks for your thoughts.
Thank you again everyone for your valuable input and support. I will write a follow-up blog about some of the strategies I am using. The kids are responding well to them.
This is so wonderful Laurie, you are and always have been an amazing person and you continue to excel at that quality. I love this.
Laurie, this is very insightful. Being a mother of 3 teenagers, I live with these parameters with my own kids, with the schools and with our community. You’re definitely looking at it from a second tier perspective. I find it difficult to engage parents and teachers with these truths. Instead they want to continue to find new ways to engage the “new generation” as if lack of self reliance, over dependence on parents, poor diet, etc. are just givens we have to work around. I recently had an HR manager from a 1000+ person law firm in a course of ours and he explained that it’s the parents of new law school graduates who come to check out the firm! Sharon Begovich has been running a discussion group at a local high school just trying to get kids talking about these things. What a challenge….please keep writing about your work!
Cynthia
Amazing! Thank you for the insight; you have very keen perception.
Laurie,
Your observations about the changes in students today from 20 years ago is absolutely chilling and sad.
I have been touched, and continue to be touched, by your depth, care, and understanding in meeting your students where they are without judgment in your assessments The gift you are bringing THE WORLD through your work with these kids is immensely important.
Bless you.
Susan
Excellent Laurie, good description, and that you care comes through!
laurie, I reckon you’ve hit the nail on the head, there is no connectedness unless it fits in your palm and is electronic!amaongst everything else you mention. Go forward, troy
You’re a great teacher of much more than mathematics. It’s been 20 years since I was in high school math class, but cheating, disrespect, and laziness was very common back then too. Could be just the NYC/American culture or be related to the demographics of this particular area back then. Kids are dealing with a lot more uncertainty these days, and are bombarded with information. A useful skill these days is prioritizing what’s important, setting boundaries and being able to filter out what’s useful from what’s BS. Otherwise, I think this may contribute to the sense of overwhelm coming from information, uncertainty about the future and career, the usefulness of knowledge with all this changing technology…all of it is too confusing for a teenager (and don’t forget the hormones, identity change, and all that stuff too! lol I think that is happening faster these days as well!). All of these things are probably contributing to the decline of their physical health as well….I know I feel like overeating and not exercising if I get bogged down with pressure and anxiety as well. I think it’s tougher today in many ways to deal with these changes than it was 20 years ago.
What you are doing is great because it’s helping them get more clear, take a little step back, breathe, and become reconnected with themselves. It’s very important and I hope more teachers follow your approach!
Cheers! -James