Teacher Only Day: Session Two

The 3 trends that will influence the future of education 

1. The change in the nature of students

Student are becoming increasingly:

- Tech savoy/plugged in
- Grown up 
- Fragile 

Technology has helped students to develop:
- Advanced fine motor skills
- Multi-divided attention
- Spatial awareness

Plugged in:
- This generation can and do learn with noise!
- However there is a distinction between noise and interruption

Grown up:
- We have a generation who know a lot more about adult content and ideas, with this comes adult issues (depression, anxiety).
- You can have deep and higher level discussions with students
- If you try to talk to 7 year old students the same way you did 20 years ago they will be disengaged because they are smarter than that.

Fragile:
- Students have become the opposite of resilient
- Older generations were taught life isn't meant to be easy, therefore life is meant to get difficult
- Advertising and pop culture have taught this generation that life is meant to be fair, easy, convenient and exciting
- This generation begins to think that when life gets hard, and it is meant to be easy, that there must be something wrong with the goal I have set
- If it is not easy then swap paths (new mindset trend)
- If life isn't easy and its not right now then there must be something wrong with me (new mindset trend)
- How do you build the capacity for resilience and persistence in a generation that has not be raised like this?
- Students are craving external validation and feedback - the internal sense of achievement and satisfaction (self esteem) is disappearing
- You are going to be a leader - every student is going to be a leader - this has created a dependency and need for constant affirmation
- We are in the era of self esteem
- Facebook and Instagram posts uploaded because they need validation - the fear has become to put something out and not receive any feedback
- Schools have stopped giving negative feedback because students don't have the self esteem to handle criticism
- The language we use has changed - it is not called failure, it is called deferred success
- You are now awarded for just entering the race


2. The Change in the Climate of the Classroom 

- Technology will change how the functional aspects of the classroom operate
- Teach students how to learn using the technology and tools they have
- Turn your mobile phone ON - this is the most powerful tool students have, they have more information in their hands than countries had in their libraries 100 years ago
- The focus has become how do we change our system of education to meet the needs of every student
- Student focused learning, rather than teacher and system focused education
- Teachers are losing their power and control in the classroom



3. The Change in the Nature and Expectations of Parents

- Helicopter parents = always hovering nearby, making sure their child is safe
- Curling parents = Making sure things are safe, protected and smooth for their kids
- These parents are the ones who were the self raised, independent children - they want to raise their children with all the things they never had, they do the complete opposite (Pendulum effect)
- These parents want to give advice to the teacher
- They keep a ledger of merit awards and parts in school plays - they are keeping teachers in check
- In the last ten years parents have been the number one headache for teachers, this needs to be a trend that schools are prepared for
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These trends will become an issue over the next few years. How will you start preparing now?

Books to look at:

Grown up digital
Free range kids