Let me share to you how I observe Junior High and Senior High students nowadays. Today, we are in a more advanced digital age that almost everything is instant-instant food, instant knowledge formation, instant communication, instant way of doing things, so people evolved to ‘instant lover’ species including the generation that sprang up along the beginning of this age. Junior High and Senior High students are usually in their teens but commonly referred to as millennials. Let’s begin what are my observations on them.
First, even if they are classified based on their performance in school most of them share noisiness as they love to talk all year round as if they haven’t been together for months though only weekends have passed and few days of semestral break and two weeks of Christmas vacation in the middle of the school year. Second, if you are the teacher and you ask them question do not expect to see a hand being raised but expect answer from each one of them like a choir. Third, though you are the teacher and they are the students, when they see you at the corridor you are like a sister or brother to them. Sometimes, you are a friend for them so expect a different way of greeting. Fourth, when you tell them that they’ll be having formative assessment tomorrow or the next day or after two days, most of the time they’ll tell you back that could it be given on their preferred day because other teachers will be giving a formative assessment too. Fifth, even though they knew that being students need to take care a lot of tasks, they will still end up complaining. Sixth, when all of them reach their maximum energy expenditure and find an opportunity to rest in a way that most of the class will not be present then expect you’ll meet lower than half of the class.
Given the following observations, you might react differently or according to my expectation agreeing or disagreeing against me. Either ways, let me explain to you points one and two. These students are living in the noisy world that’s why they can’t distinguish anymore when is too loud for them as long as they will be heard. Because information is processed quickly using the internet and they are engaged well in internet, they want to express themselves in answering your questions. In point number three, they spend well under the authorities of their parents so they want a shift when they are at school. They want somebody they can easily connect to so they see you as brother or sister or friend. In points four and five, digital age is a busy age regardless of being busy is productive or unproductive, but the main point here is students today get tired easily because they are bombarded with things they need to keep up to themselves. Sixth, whether a student belongs in cream of the crop, he or she is not a robot that’s why being in an influential environment with different peers their actions get well along to what is everybody doing even though their reason is they are tired or lazy as long as they have somebody to share with a particular decision like not to attend their class. In our part as teachers, either we complain, we rant, we accept these, we make a way to avoid these, the thing is how we react on their actions depend highly on us.
By: Ms. Ana Rosette S. Garcia | Jose Rizal Institute
