This week I've donned the tweed jacket with patches on the elbows and I'm playing Professor Donkey up front of class, pontificating on all things applied and statistical.
Most of my pupils are older than your average students, and subsequently, their life and professional experience are plain to see from their insight and the thoughtful way they approach their learning, particularly during participative group activities.
But there are a few much younger bods who are straight out of their undergrad studies, and who have comparatively very little life experience.
Each day I've watched one particular, younger student, clearly struggling with some of the difficult concepts we're exploring through group activities, more or less throw a tantrum and storm-off to work alone, rather than through collaboration with her classmates as intended. Today, the issue with which she found such exception was related to an iterative exercise exploration and mapping people's ideas and thought processes, which was evolving in organic, radiating thought bubbles from the centre of the table.
After about an hour of complaining bitterly, this young woman completely lost-it with her group members, and demanded that, in order for her to be able to follow the discussion, the ideas they were transposing to the paper needed to be presented linearly (from the top of the page to the bottom, and not radiating in all directions); "I'm sorry, but my mind just doesn't work that way, it's going to have to be changed".
Now I don't want to sound like some old man banging-on about the "younger generation", but aren't the Facebook and Twitter Generation supposed to be more able to think in three dimensions than us paper-based folk? It's a testament to the patience and empathy of the latter that the former got her way, but the imaginative processes which had been unfolding only a few moments before immediately ceased, and the self-satisfied Ms Tanty was neither encouraged to acknowledge, nor apologise for her atrocious behaviour, and she certainly was unsuccessful in grasping any of the learning on offer.
How about a little less frivolous, self obsession, Gen Y; time to toughen-up and get on board the world around you.
No discussion about Gen Y would be complete without some reference to their media spokesperson, Josh Thomas – Car-iced, with this annoying little twerp at the helm, it's no wonder the rest of us have had a gutful! Pic: http://www.theage.com.au
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