Ever heard of a student returning home and crying about a teacher in school?
What if, instead of a student, it was a teacher who returned home crying about a student in school? Well, that’s what happened to me two weeks ago!
I was asking a class of 18 year olds to imagine they were interviewers screening a potential candidate for a job. Looking through the resume, the interviewer realises the candidate once had an opportunity to take up an all-expenses paid internship of six months to any part of Asia. Yet the candidate chose to stay in his/her home country for the internship.
Upon hearing that answer, what would the interviewer’s next logical reaction be?
One of my students, when I prompted her, responded to say that she had no reaction to that candidate’s decision.
Yes that’s right. No reaction.
I don’t know about you, but in that instant, I realised the chasm between me and that student, and others like her. And by extension, the chasm between Gen X-ers like me, and Gen Z-er’s like them.
I wish I could say that this example of apathy, nonchalance and almost blood-curdling ignorance was an isolated one.
It wasn’t.
Anecdotally, as I interact with my fellow teachers and colleagues, it’s become clearer and clearer to me that many students we teach today in tertiary undergrad degree or diploma programmes (these are now mostly young Gen Z-ers and borderline Gen Alpha’s) seem totally submerged in their own virtual worlds. They are disconnected, disinterested, and mostly in disdain at the goings-on in the real world teachers like me are trying to show them in our lessons.
Thankfully it’s not EVERY student who behaves like that.
But the reality is that more and more of them are.
The Teacher’s Lost Battle With Screens
Even before Covid struck, it was a common scene in my country for teachers to walk into a classroom to witness a sea of laptops and mobile devices charged up, internal circuitries all a-fire as students flit from one window or tab to another on their always-lighted-up screens.
And this goes on throughout the lesson. Student eyes on screens more than on the teacher.
As the saying goes, once you’ve open the Pandora’s Box, best of luck shutting it back down! When my nation’s leaders decided in 2020 to put a free personal learning device (PLD) into the hands of every 13-year old in mainstream schools here, they had forever sealed the fate of teachers everywhere. Teachers who must now collaborate with machines or lose the attention of students in today’s educational “arms race”.
Over time, I’ve learnt to make the best of what attention I can get in the classroom. Albeit with great reluctance.
As I stand before each class, I often tell myself that so long as a handful of the students appear to be paying attention, I shall continue for their sake. I should ignore those who seem determined to ignore me. Even if I were to somersault or eat fire in some valiant, desperate attempt to wrestle their attention away from their shiny devices! (No, I’m kidding. I lack the dexterity and courage of circus performers to do anything like that)
Yet there’s a part of me that still wishes to see every student in my class interested and engaged in whatever I’ve got to share with them.
So I tell jokes. I share what I’ve experienced. I use their lingo now and then to gain some ‘street cred’. Short of jumping hoops, I do what I can to attract them enough to stay with me til the end of the lesson.
Naive of me perhaps, especially in today’s world of fragmented attention. But an educator can wish can’t he?
And he can cry too when he doesn’t get his wish!
A Teacher’s Tears For The Fate Of Our Future Generation
Which was what happened to me two weeks ago.
Upon returning home, I related what happened in that class to my family. I wasn’t expecting however that as I retold the tale, I also burst into tears! (Thankfully, my family’s fairly familiar by now with my occasional unexplained emotional outbursts. So, bless their hearts, they just let me finish up uninterrupted)
But afterwards, I was left wondering what came over me?
Why should that singular incident bother me so much that I got so upset? After all, that was but one student. A young girl who’s barely 18, and still learning about the world. And a subsequent check showed that the majority of her classmates would, in that fake scenario, asks the candidate why stay put instead of taking up an overseas internship?
I don’t really have an answer yet about my outbursts, but I do know that what scared me in that moment was less that she had no response. It was that she didn’t think her lack of response anything to make of. Even though to the rest of us, it was glaringly obvious she had no curiosity whatsoever. There was an absolute lack of interest in her for that candidate.
Isn’t curiosity the very stuff we need in this world to uncover and discover new knowledge and experiences? And to develop ourselves in life?
Has the ease of access to knowledge today, by a simple click or swipe action with our fingers on screens, lulled our future generation into thinking that it’s not necessary to be curious anymore?
Why does that, true or not, have such “power” as to move me to tears? Is my crying, after that student’s blase attitude, a sign that school will never be quite the same again for this teacher?!
And does this mean my plan to retire from teaching in four years has just gained further impetus?
I guess only time will tell.
[Meantime, I wonder if I should have a chat with that student again. Just to understand what would spark curiosity in her?]
If you enjoyed reading my thoughts and wish to support what I do, please consider donating, using the button below.
Thank you so much!
This attitude of disengagement (or resisting to give effort) can affect all of us. I found myself quietly grumbling this morning that we had to cook rather than just microwave oatmeal. How ridiculous!