A generation gap is often the best excuse people of different ages use to qualify their ignorance. Thirty years is a dictionary definition for a generation. The world changes a lot within this time-span. In spite of this, older people disregard what is going on in the present, while younger people ignore what happened in the past. The Beloit College Mindset List for the class of 2015 and The 2011 Mindset of Faculty (Born Before 1980) have been published to educate the different generations of what students these days believe and what teachers born before 1980 remember. A teacher not knowing what is “hip” or students thinking teachers are “old coots” are just the result of their ignorance.
Technology has preserved the past and, at the same time, has destroyed it too. Most of today’s students were born around 1993, the year Time magazine declared "Suddenly the Internet is the place to be." So it should not come as a surprise that these students are more technologically inclined. Classrooms have computers and Internet; classes are taught online or on iPads; the entire history of the world is just a finger-click away. Surely, everything about the past is available online, but students rarely seek it out voluntarily. Students believe the past, even a few years ago, is a bygone era. Teachers on the other hand believe their past is the present and do not keep up with the future. For one thing, they saw technology develop yet may not have kept pace with it. This is one reason why there is a difference in what these two groups think.
We are running out of words in the English dictionary. One major reason of why there is a communication gap between the teachers and students is the new terminology that has developed. It seems that the English language has run out of words, literally. Amazon was once a river but now is a flourishing market, Apple was once a fruit but now is a computer, and Tweet was once the sound of a bird but now it’s a communication symbol. It seems people can’t think of new words now. To the mindset of the teacher, these words mean what they meant when they grew up. To the new generation, these words have other meanings. This difference results in the differing mindsets of these two groups.
The grades A, B, C, D and F are just mere letters again. Grade inflation is a serious issue in modern education. Both the teachers and students are misguided by these letters, which once held as much value as money and power. Getting an A now is as easy as pi. Hopefully, a lot of these people can say this but don’t know the value of pi (pi = 3.1416). This is one topic where teachers and students think the same. They both feel that if someone is good, even though not the best, they should get an A.
History is just repeating itself, for teachers were once students. Right now the mindset of teachers and students are different. But, isn’t that always true for any time period. From the beginning of history, the mindset of teachers and students has varied. Think of Plato, who was in the era of the ideal and his student Aristotle, who followed the emerging earthly sciences principles. The generation gap is an ever-occurring process which can never be changed.
No one can invent something that is already there. Technology keeps on improving. Teachers have to move along this technology curve in order to catch up with the rest of the world. Students have to use the technology to connect to the world they have left behind. If both of them let go of their respective ignorant futures and pasts, and stayed in the present, then both will have the same ideas. There would be no need to invent excuses and blame the generation gap for anything.
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