Parenting Daily

One of the first topics we focus on in our parents-of-teens support group is the mindset of teens. Not just the fact that their brains are still maturing and the fact that their slang doesn’t necessarily mean what you think it means (I’ll do a topic on that in another post!)… but the oft-overlooked fact that your teen’s generation is simply different than yours. By the time we become parents, we’ve accumulated so much knowledge and life experiences that we forget that we didn’t always know what we know. We assume that everyone knows the basic things we know—where they were when Kennedy was assassinated, or one of the Space Shuttles blew up, or when 9/11 hit the news. Even if they weren’t alive for some of these events, you think they’ve probably covered that in a history or social studies class by now, right?

Not necessarily.

Though the topic is far too broad for me to get into today, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), has left many teachers feeling as though they have to shape their teaching to correspond to state assessment tests. (the table of contents on NCLB is scary enough but dig in if you dare! http://www.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/index.html) Here in
Indiana, that is the ISTEP. Click here to find out more about NCLB in your state: http://www.ed.gov/nclb/overview/importance/difference/index.html

The point is, with NCLB, if the state assessment tests don’t focus on it, it may not be your teen’s teacher’s biggest priority, either. This is through no fault of the teacher. I heard a lot of heated discussion about NCLB from teachers. The general consensus among my teaching peers was that they and their schools, really don’t have any control over lesson content.

So if you find yourself talking to your teen about something you assume they would know about, but you get that blank look or a confused expression, remember that your mindset and your teen’s are different. Another fantastic illustration of this can be found in the Beloit College Mindset List. Some of the highlights from the Class of 2011 list (which assumes that most of the students were born around 1989) include:

*What
Berlin wall?

*They’ve never “rolled down” a car window (they’re all automatic!!)

*They’ve grown up with bottled water

*Wal-Mart has always been a larger retailer than Sears and has always employed more workers than GM

*They were introduced to Jack Nicholson as “The Joker”

*Stadiums, rock tours, and sporting events have always had corporate names

*
Tiananmen Square is a 2008 Olympics venue, not the scene of a massacre

*MTV has never featured music videos

*The World Wide Web has been an online tool since they were born!

See the full list by clicking here: http://www.beloit.edu/~pubaff/mindset/2011.php

Trackback URI | Comments RSS