Kids today are an entirely different breed than they were just 10 years ago. They foods they eat are different, the songs they sing are different, and the cartoons they watch are different than the cartoons you watched. If you need any sort of convincing, pay close attention to this year's Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. It used to be the case that you knew all of the giant balloon characters. Timeless classics like Snoopy and Garfield have been replaced by a plethora of characters you might not recognize. Pokemon itself has hundreds of different characters, and even that's not as popular anymore as it once was.
It would be rather naive to think that changes in the cartoons being watched is the most striking difference between kids today and those of older generations. The fact is, 21st century kids have a lot more running through their heads than we did when we were young. Reality, usually of the harsh nature, has found its way into the innocence that used to emanate from young children. Here are a few of the ways that kids today are vastly different from those from just a few generations ago:
Kids know a lot more about sex a lot earlier in life. Today's youths can find anything and everything they want with a few keys pressed on the keyboard. Whatever they want to know, see, or watch is available online. In prior 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, a mouse-click on the button that says "Yes, I'm over 18." opens up a sexual world to anyone with a computer.
Kids know more about technology than you do. Depending on how old you are computers and the Internet played a larger or smaller role in your life. Today's youths have likely had computers in the 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 it.
There is a wider gap between good and bad students. It used to be the case that most students wanted to do well, and only a handful didn't care how they did. Today there is more of an equal split between those that want good grades and those that just want to pass. You need to learn to fend off the grade-grubbers and know when to let the unmotivated wallow in their mediocrity.
Kids have lots more emotional baggage than ever before. It's depressing to consider, but histories of abuse, neglect, and rampant indifference leave some students emotionally cut off from the class and from you. It takes time for these students to build trust in you and have success academically. You must be patient.
You already have many roles to play in your student's lives. You have to decide very early on whether you are going to be the teacher that is aware of all of the outside issues that are going on with your students, or if you will turn a blind eye and ear to them and pretend like the only world that exists is the one confined to the school grounds.
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