Don’t just sit there! Start Embracing Gen Z Life in the Classroom

I can’t imagine returning to school after Winter break & having a the teacher says, “everyone take out your phones or bring your iPads or tablets to class & let’s share your most favorite app with the class today”.

What?

Did I hear correctly??

Am I Really in school??

How about if they asked us to tell the class what we like about our favorite app or favorite tech device & back it up with a verbal argument as to why you like this particular app or device or technology & why you would recommend it others.

How hard would that be?
We would learn sooo many lessons from that type of sharing..
What our classmates like, if they are paying for the app or making in app purchases or if it’s a gaming app or a learning/educational tool, is the device something we never heard of & may consider getting etc.

Why is your Only answer to take our devices away from us & not have any interest in our world today?

Why is it sooo hard to try & connect with us?

“technology is who Gen Zers are, not what we do”

What if teachers asked us if anyone received the VR headset for the Holidays? And how is it?
Or asked us if we heard of or had any new technology to share?
Do we know about any new technologies coming out?

You would be surprised to find out what Gen Z kids know today.

Some Teachers want current
events brought to school everyday. Why can’t they be about things other than Political, Social Studies type.

Why can’t we share things that really interest us or we are an authority on?

Im sure none of my classmates know I have a “Storm Tracker” app on my phone.
And I’m positive I would be surprised to learn some of my classmates apps.
How about teachers sharing their favorite apps & technology favs with their students?

How about researching popular apps or app of the week on the internet or our most helpful tech device??

Do you realize ALL we do is research. We google & watch YouTube tutorials for everything we want to find the information we are looking for?
Why don’t we google in school?
I understand you need the Net Nanny but you can block things while at the same time allowing us to research the Gen Z way.

You need to Stop forbidding us to function in our world & try to understand how we operate, how we communicate & share.

Embrace us & we will respect u.

However, we would like to be respected in return as well.
If you show interest in us, in our world, it lets us know u care & that our interest are important.

When u take away our devices, our world, it’s like saying, “We have zero interest in you”.

We are very interesting, if you ask us, we would love to share so many things with you.
And you can make a lesson out of it at the same time & give us “Feedback”.

We are used to giving feedback & reviewing things all the time, why don’t u learn to review our work & give us feedback?

You don’t even need to say you are “marking” & “grading” our papers anymore.. that just stresses us out & most of us already have anxiety.

If u use the feedback & review terms it gets the conversation going, u are speaking our language.

There are tons of ways to incorporate our technology & devices into the classrooms, from math to science to listening to an audio book for a change.
I don’t know a kid that doesn’t like being read to.
Believe me, they would Love to listen to an audio book.

Give it a try..
what’s the worse that can happen, you having Happy students?!

Sky