First of all… WOW, if you didn’t catch the OU KS game, watch the replay. One of the best games in a while… Now I have to follow that performance. It’s not gonna, but I‘m hoping it can help someone anyway…
I have a feeling as I find my voice the concept of culture in education will be a strong theme in my writing. I am a geography teacher, with a social science degree after all. The eclectic collection of so many cultures within our school walls provides all kinds of complex opportunities. Inter-Faculty cultural relations shape a school’s culture much more than most factors. I read a couple of stories today related to millennials and how they are perceived by other generations. It never hurts a profession have an honest discussion about how we can be better. Hopefully some of these ideas can help if help is needed…
Sometimes you read an article and agree with it, sometimes you don’t. Then sometimes someone says something to wildly off-base and ridiculous it requires attention. I don’t have a lot of commentary on this article that hasn’t been said before. I will say the tone of both this article and the TIME article loaded with “statistics” and “proof” carry in the grand tradition of taking the kiddos out to the woodshed. This isn’t any new controversy or any new excuse. Younger generations “hearing it” from the oldies is all but a rite of cultural passage. And while portions of Stein’s assessment are backed up by “facts” and “numbers”, an incorrect interpretation of those facts and numbers can grossly misrepresent the makings of a large group of people. A rebuttal to such cultural commentary can be found here.
Each school and each relationship is unique. I would encourage you to look for more on this topic as it will clearly be a large part of our collective environment. The Millennial generation is entering the workforce and a number of “us” are in the ranks of teachers now. Several are in college and the babies of us are rounding out their formative years as Obama’s administration draws to a close. The First President they helped elect, both in 2008 and 2012.
A critical element to the Millennials as a group is their diversity. Their remarkable diversity. This is a result of the immigration waves from the past several decades predominantly coming from Latin America and Asia. While diversity is a good thing, conflict is going to occur if the culture and institutions are not prepared. As Ana Swanson points out here. She states:
“Part of the reason could be that younger Americans are far more diverse than older generations, and race- and ethnicity-based disadvantages continue to loom large in the U.S., the economists say. White and Asian families are far wealthier than black and Hispanic families in the U.S., across all age groups.”
Just as an aesthetic critique the article, while doing a decent enough job at assessing the problem, the solutions provided still lie in the models of the past. This is not shaping up to be a good plan in the voting booths. (That is an issue for another several dozen blog posts).
I’ll say this for now, decisions are made by the people that show up. Until the younger generations become engaged politically that table will continue to be dressed and set by a party that won’t be around to pay the tab. These past several years, as more and more incidents involving police and people of color are brought to light, the Millennials are finding out, sometimes in painful and fatal ways, that Obama did not end racism.
Now, I do not think reasonable people believed that racism was “over”. It is worth noting both Generation X and Millennial’s are the first two generations to not live through Legally sanctioned segregation in this country. The distance these generations are from those incidents, coupled with enough conscience-soothing examples showing the contrary, did make it possible for things like this to happen. The majority culture in America is slowly coming to the realization minority communities have known all along, racism is still around, we just found new ways to hide it.
This brings us to the difficult part. What do we do? Can we at the very least admit there are problems that need attention? I bring this up because teachers have to be aware and understanding of how those around them interpret the world. For some this means a shift in paradigm. There are parts of our profession we must rethink. The generational conflict is always going to be in the classroom but, the retirement of the Boomers and the entrance of the Millennials into the workforce could possibly pose a problem within organizations and the culture as a whole. Cummings article ends with an assessment that schools should listen to:
Whether these claims are entirely accurate, everyone seems to agree on one thing: To Gen-X, Boomers and Millennials are incomprehensible in large part because they seem to waste time on things that don't further one's self-interest or one's career. But Boomers and Millennials seem to understand each other just fine. We want the world to be a better place when we leave it than it was when we arrived. Gen-X needs to keep that in mind in order to understand what makes us tick.
Again, none of this is a perfect assessment and each person is unique. But we are shaped by our culture and have to understand the other generations were shaped by theirs. This is difficult the larger the generational and cultural divide, and something schools are accustomed to. All groups could learn from one another. Ultimately, as teachers we must make a decision. Whether we know it or not, admit it or not, get credit for it or not, we are always going to be a part of the culture’s development. Understanding that can help us do our job more effectively, as father time so inconsiderately continues to move us further and further away from the emerging generations.
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