Educating Generation Z
Six-year-old Christopher has just arrived home from school and opened the family’s computer. He logs on to his class web page to check what he has to do for homework this week.
His 10-year-old sister, Kaitlin, is already focused on her Nintendo DS, playing an interactive game with her friend from next door. And Mum is waiting for Samantha to arrive home from high school to program her new mobile phone for her.
Welcome to the digital age where the natives are known as ‘Generation Z’.
This is the generation which has never known a time without mobile phones, laptop computers, MP3 players or the internet. Its members are today’s school students, whose older brothers and sisters, who may be now in the workforce, are called ‘Generation Y’.
Their parents, of course, are the famous ‘Generation X’. And their grandparents are the ‘Baby Boomers’.
A special environment
Generations Y and Z have both been growing to maturity in the age of the computer. Both have embraced the opportunities provided by an explosion in technology which has created the environment for much of their learning and development.
Samantha’s 14-year-old friends take for granted the new social technologies, such as iPods and mobile phones, MySpace and Facebook. They use these to strengthen friendships and expand relationships that are both real and virtual. Instant messaging is just one application which draws them into virtual communities in real time, no matter where they are.
Unusual status
Children growing up in this age have greater access to the adult world than was available to their parents’ generation. This can be a cause for anxiety and requires an education, both at home and at school, to help them become discerning and responsible users of a whole range of emerging technologies.
Generation Z certainly possess a range of technical skills already. In fact, because of the competence they have acquired as a normal part of growing up in today’s world, they are often given an unusual status in their own homes, advising parents on the operation of the latest items of technology and even influencing family purchases of such items.
What does it all mean for schooling?
If the schooling we provide today is to be relevant to our Generation Z children, it must take full account of the opportunities and challenges that come with the digital age. Their world is very different to the one in which their parents and teachers were schooled.
For a start, today’s students live and learn in a world of massive information-overload. Rather than more information, they desperately need an education in how to manage and make sense of it, in how to filter it intelligently and bring different aspects together in meaningful ways.
Much publicity has been generated around the provision of computers to schools. The equipment is certainly needed, but the real issues around technology are not essentially about more hardware and software. These are never ends in themselves. They are tools which serve our educational goals of developing the whole child, of serving the common good, of preparing our students for future employment, of developing a social conscience and a global consciousness, and of producing clear thinkers, clever decision-makers and appreciators of our religious and cultural heritage. In doing this we hope to prepare all our students to be lifelong learners. How, then, do the technologies contribute to all of this?
1. They can strengthen relationships
Quality relationships are at the very heart of effective schooling. The personal links between students and their teachers and between the students themselves are much more important than any teaching strategy, syllabus or way of organising the school’s agenda.
The new social technologies have a tremendous capacity for bringing learners together, providing them with exciting tools for collaboration and for team-based learning, and for reaching networks of other learners both within, and well beyond, the school.
As a major enabler of this, the role of the teacher progressively expands to include elements of being a personal tutor, a mentor, and a fellow learner, with the whole learning community of the class exploring and exploiting the opportunities provided by the new technologies.
2. They can enrich the learning environment
Creative approaches to school design and architecture enable greater flexibility in the learning environment. There are many examples in our schools of creative adaptations of learning spaces. Even in the most traditional buildings, innovative principals and teachers have seized opportunities to modify the spaces available so that fresh approaches can be implemented.
Creative innovation is not limited to the physical resources of the school. The new technologies enable the structure of the timetable, the composition of planned curriculum and the ways of organising learning generally, to be approached with a fresh mindset that is open to new ways of responding to the needs, interests, capabilities and experiences of students.
3. They can change the ways teachers teach
The very nature of the new technologies lends itself to learning opportunities that are both personalised and highly relevant to students.
New ways of teaching will enhance the independence of individual students in following tailor-made programs while, at the same time, induct each one into a community of learners.
Powerhouses rather than museums
The education of Generation Z is an exciting and vitally important responsibility. It requires schools that are not museums, but rather energetic powerhouses of opportunity built around quality relationships, quality teaching, imaginative use of space and creative ways of learning and teaching – all served by the tools of the digital age.
As we move into the future, we will be increasingly blurring these somewhat arbitrary descriptors of Generation Z. The future is lifelong learning for all – at any age, at any time and in any space. This is the challenge facing the modern world.
Did you know?
In 2007, the average Australian family household had:
- 2 portable MP3/MP4 players
(Source: ACMA study cited in Lee, M & Gaffney,M (eds.), Leading the Digital School. 2008)
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