As an educator, the importance of relating to your students is always put under a great emphasis. However, this can sometimes be far easier said than done due to many reasons. The reason of focus today is the age gap found between students and their teachers. Being a newer teacher minimizes this age gap, especially depending on the grade being taught. For example, a first year teacher will not have a major age gap between their high school level students. Therefore, understanding and relating to them may come easily. On the other hand, an experienced / older teacher will have a much greater age gap with their elementary age students. Which could cause some difficulty to relate due to a different upbringing and society with the students in comparison to the teacher.
To better understand this, let's first look at the website https://www.beloit.edu/mindset/2021/ which contains The Mindset List. This list is the mindset list for the youngest current college student, more specifically students of the class of 2021. As a student of 2019 and a soon to be younger teacher, this list was more relatable to me in many cases because I grew up in the same or similar decade. However, there were a few points that still surprised me. For example, number 8 states "they have largely grown up in a floppy-less world. You never really think of past technology since technology is constantly evolving, we more think about future technology. Therefore, we currently think of usb drives and now online clouds. However, I do actually remember uses floppy discs whenever I was younger. Yet, people just a few years younger than me do not. It's crazy how quickly technology is evolving! On a more humorous note, even though these may have been relatable to me, some items were still really humorous to me. For example, number 10 states that "there have always been emojis to cheer us up. It's so true! Just a simple heart from your best friend or boyfriend could instantly put a smile on your face. Some people even go above and beyond and type out with emojis and make jokes with emojis. The iPhone even now suggests an emoji whenever you type a given word (for example if you type out taco it'll suggest the taco emoji. Another item that greatly made me chuckle was number 22: "Dora the Explorer and her pet monkey Boots helped to set them on the course of discovery. I used to love Dora! (I even had a Dora themed birthday party once.) As said earlier, I am not much older than the students this list is based on. Therefore, it was very understandable and relatable to me. Readers of an older age or generation would view the list far differently and less relatable than I did.
To further the topic, let's take a look at the youtube video "What is 21st Century Education?" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ax5cNlutAys). Two statistics given in the video particularly surprised me. These were "the number of people learning English in China nearly equals the US population" and "in the past 5 years the digital universe has grown by 1,000%". These outstanding numbers are just astonishing to me. It amazes me how quickly things such as language can be learned and spread. Furthermore, it is mind blowing how quickly technology is progressing and growing. These statistics definitely put it more into perspective. Tying this into education, technology now plays a major role in education. It is found everywhere in the classroom from smart boards to student assigned chrome books and iPads. Therefore, teachers have to be completely up to date with the technology so that they can teach the students how to use it in a beneficiary manner. However, I have faced experiences where the teachers seemed baffled and lost when it came to technology. Which is not very encouraging or helpful for the students. Current and future teachers need to be as up to date with technology as there students, if not more than. Teachers need to be trained so that way technology serves a beneficial purpose within the classroom rather than as a distraction.
