Neil Howe
"Every generation turns a corner," he said at a LHRIC session of the Technology Leadership Institute, which was held Dec.11 at the Edith Macy Conference Center in Briarcliff Manor. Every 20 years or so, children make a correction for the excesses of their elders. If they didn't, society "would have gone over the edge a long time ago," said Howe. Effective education requires that teachers understand the changing needs of students and parents and that advances in one era require reform in another.
Howe’s book, which he co-wrote with William Strauss, examines the millennial generation and follows up on an earlier book written 10 years ago, Generations, in which the authors made predictions about youth trends. The new book is at least partly based on surveys conducted by the authors of members of the Class of 2000.
Today's students, "millennials" born in the 1980s and 1990s and early years of the 21st century, are confident, conventional, pressured, team-oriented and optimistic, said Howe. They look to the future and, while not willing to take risks, will work hard to live up to what they see as elevated expectations. They are the sheltered children of Generation-Xers, who grew up relatively unprotected in a culture that was, by and large, anti-child. And they are the children and grandchildren of Boomers, an independent, self-sufficient lot that turned away from the institutions built for them by the generation of outer-focused GIs, maintained by a "lost" generation that largely lived within that system or made changes by working from the inside.
Today's kids are those for whom the signs "baby on board" were posted on windshields, for whom everybody on a team got a trophy,
for whom Amber laws were invented. It was for them that parents lowered the rate of divorce and alcohol-abuse. Look around and you'll see that advertisers and politicians are focused on these millennial children, because that is where their parents are looking.
This is then no longer a society in which parents will happily trust in the schools to do the job, said Howe. Some are "helicopter" parents who hover and touch down at a moment's notice to protect, defend -- and push their kids. They want "Fed Ex" service, Howe said. If a company can tell them where a package is anywhere in the world, then why can't a school tell them what and how their children are doing at any given time? They do not comprehend the notion of "comprehensive" high schools, said Howe, but look instead to a more stringent curriculum, with education tailored to each child The children, in turn, are high-achieving, less violent than groups in the past, less interested in art and philosophy as they are in getting the job done. They are the generation for whom values mean voting and volunteering and measurable accomplishment. They are willing to give up personal expression and privacy to achieve it, particularly in their use of technology, Howe said.
The question then is not how will technology change them, but what will this generation demand of technology? Their technological needs are not the needs of their parents, for and by whom the personal computer was invented as a means of personal expression, study and a distance from a mainframe mentality. These students use the computer not as a way of distancing themselves from institutions, of connecting to them, and to each other, of developing not only themselves but the base of knowledge available to all, said Howe. The world is, for them, one big Wikipedia.
Schools that train them to connect, and that connect to their parents, will in return work with students who are respectful, close to
their parents, happy to work within teams, and focused on the future.
“The smart educator will embrace parents, acknowledge that they are working in partnership, respond quickly to questions, and make it a point to evaluate and re-evaluate student work and goals often,” said Howe.
Schools that encourage students to lead and organize, he said, will find that they work well in groups and help each other succeed. They need challenge, direction, achievable goals, and teachers who themselves understand that the best educator is one who is still learning.
Howe and Strauss also wrote 13th Gen and The Fourth Turning, and lecture frequently on generational issues. They host discussions with readers at their two web sites, www.millennialsrising.com and www.fourthturning. com and manage a consulting firm LifeCourse Associates, which assists businesses, media, and government institutions in using their work in product development, marketing, human relations, and strategic planning.
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