Parenting Millennials - "Back To School? Why Bother?"
by Kathryn Booth, N2Millennials
What can parents and grandparents do to help their Millennials stay engaged and enrolled in school?
Despite vast changes in the pace and availability of technology and information that has created a global economy and transformed expectations in business as consumers and sellers, education has largely remained the same. There are a few schools that have been able to break out of the traditional pattern of simultaneous instruction of warehoused students, but the majorities of publicly educated students are stuck in the 1940’s during school and escape to the 21st Century after.
Dropout rates and the downward spiraling of performance in math and science alarm anyone who has an interest in the near future. It is an economic fact that just like the base of our economy shifted from primarily agrarian to industrial, it has just as irretrievably shifted from an industrial and manufacturing based economy to a combination of service and information industries.
The prospects of jobs paying wages that will support a family with even two full time workers have almost disappeared as outsourcing and overseas manufacturing have eliminated entry level, non-skilled jobs with potential for wages above $20 per hour with benefits. Job creation in the last decade has shifted to part-time work with no benefits and very little possibility for advancement or anything but incremental increase in wages.
This gulf between two tracks – struggling in a non-skilled part-time service economy or doing the intense, expensive and life consuming work needed to be educated and promoted into a high wage earning professional or information technology career is visible to Millennials. They’ve seen parents and grandparents who worked their way up to a comfortable standard of living be downsized out of careers they started with hopes of lifetime employment and retirement benefits.
In the minds of Millennials, they must “sell out” to keep a corporate job, they see people earning upper middle class incomes often sacrificing relationships and experiences years on end to keep their jobs working 50 to 60 hours a week. The alternative for the skill sets learned in school – “show up, listen, comply and do as you are told” - is to be treated as pretty much disposable employees in low skill service jobs with no benefits and part time hours.
If we care for our Millennials, we need to take steps to inject the possibility of something more and accept that they have an alternate set of choices that seem insanely risky to previous generations, but to Millennials who cut their teeth on constant change is not intimidating at all.
Education Choices and Challenges for Millennials
Millennials are keenly aware and expect that up to date, detailed information about pretty much everything is a few clicks away. Telling them to memorize information seems pointless, forcing them to use technology and textbooks that are outdated and inaccurate even more so. Doing what it takes to have your Millennial in a forward thinking public school or private school enhances the possibility of them remaining engaged.
For some Millennials, creating customized education, especially in higher grades, using home school materials and college classes, travel and research projects allows them to learn at a pace that fulfills them and opens up internship and career possibilities or time for service activities. Challenges, modular learning and experiences keep them engaged and moving forward.
Relationships are important to Millennials and are a key reason many attend school at all. Alliances with other parents and encouraging Millennials to create and customize supplemental travel, service, social and learning alternatives can help.
One of our associates, who has an exceptionally bright and artistically talented Millennial daughter, allowed her to work with a counselor on things she wanted to learn about and places she wanted to go as she entered high school. They formulated a plan that allowed her to complete the mandatory school requirements as quickly as possible using correspondence and online classes, and positioned her in a part time job to earn money for travel and activities.
Instead of leaving high school with a yearbook and diploma, she traveled throughout Europe and Latin America, gained enough job experience to be employable pretty much anywhere she wants and got entry into a prestigious design school where she is studying photography.
Millennials are globally aware and creating service and learning opportunities for them, in the local community and in other countries even, may be a crucial tactic in keeping them on board to complete school and go on to higher education. Our parenting section in process now will have information about some organizations that offer service/learning travel opportunities.
Second nature to Millennials is “gaming the system” and instead of framing school attendance as something unavoidable and non-choice – parents can show them ways to win school as a game, leveling up by achieving goals on grades and project performance. They can game teachers and administrators by helping them create learning opportunities for everyone, instead of being subversive and looking for hacks and cheats to the system.
Cheating and plagiarism is a big issue in high schools and colleges. Unless we re-align and explain the context of, consequences for and our perception of cheating, this is often a big conflict for Millennials, educators and parents. From their perspective, why bother at all learning the material when the information changes so frequently and is available in their expectations instantaneously via an Internet connection?
Real learning is the process and analysis of information, interpretation and relevant communication of it. If projects and classes were framed in this contextual format, Millennials could see it as a challenge and look for ways to simplify it and optimize it. Instead, our schools and teachers “teach to the test” which is interpreted by Millennials as forcing them to memorize and regurgitate useless information, a huge waste of their time and energy.
Whether your school is communicating this and looking for ways to create technology and experience portals that engage Millennials, it is up to you to take time as a parent or grandparent to give them this perspective. At a minimum it can alleviate frustration. Going beyond that to invest in supplemental learning and technology that enhances and expands what the school provides is well worth it if it prevents despair, boredom and hostility.
The very things that irritate, intimidate and mystify educators, employers and parents about Millennials are their strongest assets as they move into the future we’ve set in motion for them. Having confidence that they will find true success and fulfillment and accepting and celebrating their Millennialization is our highest course of action when it’s time for back to school.
Kathryn Booth, MBA
Originally a pre-med, Biology/Chemistry double major, dabbling in Art and Psychology, Kathryn is a long-time computer nerd, fluent in "engineer" and "tech".
Leadership, Marketing and Franchise Systems Development were the emphasis in her MBA granted from the University of Oklahoma in 2006.
Kathryn has worked as a consultant with a wide variety of companies prior to joining the N2Millennials team and creating WeDidtheMath.com and BigBusinessZoo.com.
As a mother to 6 Millennials, the eldest of which is 24, she is not only partial to them as a group, but passionate about their unique potentials and capabilities.
To contact Kathryn's office: 1.360.830.6692
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