Kids Today – Guide to Understanding Differences for New Teachers

Children today are a completely different race than they were just 10 years ago. The foods they eat are different, the songs they sing are different, and the cartoons they see are different from the cartoons you saw. If you need some kind of convincing, pay close attention to this year’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. It used to be the case that you knew all the giant balloon characters. Timeless classics like Snoopy and Garfield have been replaced by a plethora of characters you might not recognize. Pokémon itself has hundreds of different characters, and even that is not as popular as it once was.

It would be quite naive to think that the changes in the cartoons you see are the most striking difference between the children of today and those of previous generations. The fact is that the children of the 21st century have a lot more things going through their minds than we did when we were young. Reality, usually harsh in nature, has found its way to the innocence that used to emanate from young children. Here are some of the ways that children today are very different from those of just a few generations ago:

Children know much more about sex much earlier in life. Today’s youth can find anything and everything they want with just a few keystrokes on the keyboard. Everything you want to know, see or look at is available online. In previous generations there was an informational barrier between things of a pornographic nature and young people. If you weren’t old enough to buy it, you couldn’t, and you probably didn’t know where to go to get it anyway. Now, click your mouse on the button that says “Yes, I am over 18 years old.” opens up a sexual world to anyone with a computer.

Children know more about technology than you. Depending on how old you are, computers and the Internet played a bigger or smaller role in your life. Today’s youth have likely had computers at home since they were born. For them it is a source of information, entertainment, communication, productivity and more. They know about software, games, wireless networks, and websites that you don’t know about. Get over.

There is a wider gap between good and bad students. It used to be that most students wanted to do well, and only a few didn’t care how they did it. Today there is a more equal division between those who want good grades and those who just want to pass. You have to learn to defend yourself against those who take away your grades and know when to let the unmotivated wallow in their mediocrity.

Children have much more emotional baggage than ever. It’s depressing to consider, but stories of rampant abuse, neglect, and indifference leave some students emotionally separated from the class and from you. It takes time for these students to build confidence in you and succeed academically. You must be patient.

You already have many roles to play in your student’s life. You have to decide from the beginning if you are going to be the teacher who is aware of all the external problems that are happening with your students, or if you will turn a blind eye and ears and pretend to be the only world. that exists is confined to school grounds.