WEARING THE HAT OF YOUNGER GENERATION

                                          WEARING THE HAT OF YOUNGER GENERATION

A teacher or instructor has tough time handling class of 60 students for even an hour. The reasons can vary ranging from reducing attention span of students, dull subject, and disturbances from external environment and so on.

One important reason is lack of understanding of young student community, which on many occasions is also misunderstood by their parents. In fact, some parents completely surrender to teacher or psychiatrist with those words- AB TUMHARE HAWALE….

 Common dialogue from both parents and teachers is- things were not like this during our time when we were students. Question is how can they be same over a generation? Can we as teachers/parents change our thinking hat and look to scenario from their point of view?

THEIR HAT

1-Bonsai looks good in drawing room. You can also have world’s smallest dog –Chihuahua as your pet. Nevertheless, do you want us to be growing like a Bonsai or Chihuahua? If the answer is NO, kindly let us have our own way and not your philosophy- EITHER MY WAY OR HIGHWAY!

2- Kindly let us know our status! Are we grown up or growing up or still kids. You as parents have different standards on various occasions. If a glass full of water is broken, you say- you have grown up but still cannot handle a simple glass of water. However, if we want to have a night out with friends at her residence, you stop immediately saying- you are not mature enough to stay out whole night!

3- You and your parents may have been educated in local/vernacular medium. Competition has forced education through English medium that we have accepted without any fuss. Now if we have global personalities as our Icons/hero/role-models, why so fuss about it. We can immediately connect with Bill Gates and J K Rowling than with Munshi Premchand and Subhadra kumari Chauhan.

4- All of us cannot have an IQ of Einstein. Giving hormone treatment to brain has its own limitations. It may move from 60 to 70 but not reach 110.

5- Why on this earth sports/music/hobby is treated as distractions from study. As long as we not choosing any of the above as our future profession, these activities act as refreshers from regular study routine.

6- Why our one time failure is not accepted with grace? We are to be blamed if we have a five-year plan to clear matriculation examination. However, one failure during only one or two subjects/practical is heavily criticized. WHY?

7- We cannot be a combination of APJ Abdul Kalam and Sachin Tendulkar or a mixture of Indra Nooyee and Mother Teressa. If we are good/mediocre at one particular area, kindly accept that.

8- Instead of touching feet of elders or relatives in a social function, we greet them with Hi. This does not mean that we are manner less!

9-We have grown in a net connected world! We understand well that information is not knowledge. However, appreciate the fact that your canvass is 35 mm while ours is 70 mm.

10- You grew listening to story with a morale- SLOW AND STEADY WINS THE RACE! We are listening to a new rule of the game- BE 80% CORRECT AND FASTER RATHER THAN 100% CORRECT AND SLOWER!  In new story, the hare did not take a break and won race over tortoise.

11- For your generation protection of assets such as cash, ornaments was of prime importance. Now the problem is partially solved with availability of gold bonds and safe deposit vaults. For us it our privacy which is very important because there has been a change in our public private ratio. We protect our privacy by changing our FB profile, changing the password of e-mail and in extreme cases by closing our account also.

12- You claim you know value of money. Many of you are therefore in spending + save mode. We know present value of money we have through pocket money. Hence, we are in spending mode-maximizing value of little money we have. Saving from whatever little kitty we have would be unwise (not foolish).

13-Ocasssions- If alumni meet of 1980 batch of yours is important for you, we have our fresher’s party or valedictory function in school for the outgoing batch on top priority.

14- You follow philosophy of SST- Sasta, Sunder, Tikau ( Cheap, attractive, durable). We believe in Sasta Roye Baar Baar, Mahanga Roye Ek Bar.

15- If we are comfortable with different gadgets, it does not necessarily mean that we are genius. You suddenly raise your expectation after watching us working on laptop and then get disappointed.

16- You insist on dedicated parking for car while buying a flat or villa but park the car outside and earn by letting the garage. This is happening to us also in real life. In some cases, we do not find a dedicated place in your minds which has other priorities on top. We are referring to quality time to be spent with us.

17- You give us wings to fly and when we start flying on our own; you start giving us GYAN- Direction is more important than speed! We know both- in which direction are we going and at what speed.

18- Like you, we also believe in the God. However, the way you deal with him on transaction to transaction basis is unacceptable to us.

19- As long as we are current on information on latest happening, why criticize us for not reading newspaper? We get the same information faster and more authentic through news alerts.

20- While buying an asset for us  such as a mobile or a moped; please do your homework on both onetime capital cost and recurring expenses. Yes, our pocket money should be cut if mobile bill is extraordinarily high. Nevertheless, if it is within limit; why each month complain on receipt of bill?

Can we as parents or teachers listen to what they are trying to say? Not all, but may be few of the issues raised by them force us to rethink and mend our ways a bit.