Teaching Adult Kids Today

Youth today are in some ways the exact same as they always have been, but in other ways, they are charting vastly new territory. They are still kids and they are still taught much of the same curriculum in school, but their personal lives look extremely different than they did 50 years ago. I believe that kids today are shown and taught how to grow up more quickly than ever before. 

Along with amazing medical and technological advances, violence around us has increased significantly. All of these factors teach children to act like teens, and teens to act like adults. With the great technological advances, the knowledge that children can receive from television and internet can be very dangerous. Not only are they learning much more at a younger age, they often come across things that are detrimental to their young minds, such a disturbing news or pornographic material. This is very serious because though children today are smart enough to understand what many things mean, they do not have the emotional capacity to deal with problems. Another big issue I see is how often youth come in contact with violence. “In 2010, nearly 700 Chicago school children were shot, 66 fatally, often in multiple shootings, as when 10 were murdered and 37 wounded by firearms in a single three-day period” (Yanklowitz 2014). There are school shootings and bomb threats regularly, and children are being prepared for something that should never have even been thought about as an eight year old. These are just a few of the issues that children today face. 


As a future teacher, I have to not only teach kids, but I feel the responsibility to help them be children and be safe. Technology is so advanced it is very easy to let children use iPads or computers in the classroom to do a lot of school work, but they need to be able to do things on their own and technology can limit that. I also have to keep technology in mind when assigning homework or projects because I do not want my kids cheating or stumbling upon something that could be bad for them. Furthermore, as a teacher, I have to be prepared to deal with violence within the classroom like home problems, bullying, school shootings, or even bombs. All of these things are becoming more regular occurrences and that is so scary. It makes teaching a totally different ballgame than even 20 years ago. These are only a few of the issues that are coming up within an elementary school classroom today and it is quite astounding. 

References

Yanklowitz, R. (2014, March 24). It's Hard to Be a Kid Today. The Huffington Post. Retrieved March 27, 2014, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-shmuly-yanklowitz/its-hard-to-be-a-kid-today_b_5018406.html