Two Google searches, one for "teaching millennials" and the other "teaching gen y" produced quite the bevy of hits. As a teaching veteran, still deeply engaged and successful with his students, I was intrigued to read about strategies for dealing with these students who, according to the documents I was consulting, are notably different from the students of fifteen years ago, not to mention my own generation in our student days.
My overall suspicion is that such thinking is hogwash, brewed by those tapmeisters of the teaching community, the educator-squirrels who dispense gallons of pedagogical advice but can’t teach their way out of a paper bag, but I decided to dig in a bit anyway.
The various "teaching strategies" gave me no end of amusement. The squirrels earnestly implore me to tell your students when they’ve done well and to try to enliven your classes with variety and to provide plenty of structure and to engage your students as people. They advise that I set high standards for achievement and help students manage their time more effectively.
My opinion of educator-squirrels, already gutter-low to begin with, has not been enhanced by these suggestions. It isn’t that these points are not good advice; they are. But they’re hardly confined to teaching today’s younger people. They’re universal practices. I’ll be you anything that Aristotle set high standards for Alexander the Great, and that Plato & Cie were quick to say "good point, Demetrion!" as they tossed ideas around in the groves of Akademe. I would have grave doubts about any teacher for whom the idea of helping students with time management was a revelation.
I suppose lecture-circuit blandishments and book publishing deals will continue to entice the dealers of educationese, the pointers-out of the obvious, the peddlers of platitudes. The trick is to clothe such polysyllabic flapdoodle in contemporary garments so it masquerades as creative thinking.
Among the piles of educationese-larded prattle I came across a refreshing article from a so-called "millennial" student. Her advice: edit our work thoroughly and don’t worry about sparing our feelings, make us take notes, make us defend our ideas, make us show our research process, and hold us accountable.
In other words, ix-nay with the ull-bay about illennials-may. They’re students. Teach them.