The teacher and freshman of 2011-12 were not raised up differently, but were raised in a different time with different technologies. As a student, I do not realize how someone could be raised without technology, and teachers do not understand what it is like to be spoiled with all the technology we now have. Although teachers and students have some major differences, there is a way to connect each other in order to learn.
Freshmen rely on technology. They have the Internet set up on their phones. Teachers often can barely find anything they need to know on the Internet even if they even had access to a computer. When students do not know the answer, they can simply type it in their phone as a message and send it to Google and then get the answer sent to them in a matter of seconds. Also, they have not been taught to think as teachers were because they have always had something to think for them- calculators, computers, and phones, for example. Students know what they have to do, but they have not been thoroughly taught how to put it on paper and actually write a paper without an Internet tab of information pulled up on the screen along with the paper that they are typing. They have always been allowed to make mistakes and not have to get it right the first time because it does not take long to backspace and redo what they were actually trying to say. Compared to professors, students have always had easy ways to do the hard things they had to do. In math class they can put formula straight into the calculator and get the answer instead of having to write the problem down on paper and working it out step-by-step. A few years ago touch screens became an everyday appliance and they are already so helpful that they are being used in schools to teach students.
Teachers do not fully understand that students can get the same amount of work done in class that they did without having to do the same amount of work. Students also learned how to do what they can by experiencing it, and not hearing what is possible and what is not. When students do not understand what is going on in government and in our country, it is because they have not been through the things that affect what is going on now. When there is a crisis, students cannot connect the present to the past. The history that that students learn in class is the personal past for many professors. When a freshman comes home and asks his parent about what it was like when the races were divided, our parents know because they were a part of the problem or had parents who were a part. America has an eventful past that has forced people to think outside the box and change the world in a short span of time, not giving us students the chance to understand what our professors and parents went through.
The lives of teachers and students illustrate a gap in learning. It is hard for teachers to teach things that students cannot understand. Teachers have to connect with each student and each student is different. There is such variety of learners that each student cannot be taught the same way. Teachers have to split up the lesson in order to teach auditory learners, hands-on learners, and read-it-all-yourself learners. The teacher has to put the time in to know what each learner can do with what they are given and how it is given to them.
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