A Memo to the New Generation

Many of us have heard about the battles of life that our parents went through as children such as having to walk uphill (both ways) to school through six feet of snow barefoot without a coat and leaving before the chickens got up to get there early enough to gather coal in order to light the stove to keep all of the students warm in a one room schoolhouse that had a class of 172 with ages ranging from 5-18….how’s that for a run-on sentence?  Did you ever think, “”I am never going to lay that on my kids or the kids I teach? … and then you do because you think that these kids today have it SO EASY.  It’s okay, every generation does this.  Here are a few of my favorites from my age group (yep, a card-carrying AARP member):  (1) We didn’t have the Internet.  If we wanted to know something, we had to walk to the library and look it up in something called a card catalog and then read six books from cover to cover.  (2)  E-mail?  What the heck is that?  We actually had to take a pen (it’s that thing with ink in it), write a letter, walk all the way to the mailbox (those metal containers where you placed stamped mail) and then, it would take a week to get there! (3)  Child Protective Services?  Are you kidding?  Not only did parents have the right to not spare the rod, but the neighbors also had permission to take us behind the woodshed. I could have received mail at that location. (4)  There was this little book called the TV Guide in which you had to look up the shows you wanted to watch and then…God forbid, you actually had to get your rear end off the couch and gulp, manually change the channel on the 19 inch black and white Zenith while your brother stood on one leg with “tin foil” wrapped around his forearm and a colander placed on his head. (5)  Car seats?  Yeah right.  Mom tossed you in the back or “Way Back” and you just hung on for dear life.  I recall actually removing the seat belts because they were too cumbersome.  (6)  Caller ID?  Here was the deal – if you were on the phone and someone called, they got a busy signal and just had to wait.  When the phone rang for your house (party lines, ever hear of them?), you had no idea who it was and had to take your chances. It could be your friend, your teacher, your Pastor, your mortgage company. It couldn’t have been a girl – they weren’t allowed to call boys back then. If they wanted to leave a voice mail, they would have to wait a few decades because there was no such thing. Don’t even get me started on texting…As Bob Dylan crooned, “The Times They Are A Changing.”  These kids have it so easy…our parents said the same thing…

Of course there have been technological advances throughout the years and thank God!  If you have been at this for a while you may recall that before white boards and Smart Boards there were chalk boards…and before that, slates.  The only mouse in the classroom was a live one.  You didn’t discuss things with the Principal through the PBIS format – he just told you to assume the position, to grab your ankles, and that you would feel a little sting as he warmed up his paddle with a few practice swings. I still have scars, but I digress.  The point and click sounds heard today had forerunners of the tap-tap-tap of manual typewriter keys. Ball point pens grew from having to dip your pen in an ink well that was located on your desk.  Computers, if you had any, were not in the classrooms.  They were located across the street in a building twice the size of Rhode Island.  Personal computers and electronic tablets were something that weren’t invented yet…or thought of. Kids ate paste…okay, they still do that.  Video-streaming has replaced DVD’s, which replaced VHS tapes, which replaced BetaMax, which replaced Super 8, which replaced reel to reel movies.  A LOT HAS CHANGED!  One thing will never change in what we do – KIDS.  Kids will always be made of flesh and blood.  There will always be a personal relationship component to what we do. There will always be a human connection.  The technology that we will have next year will far exceed what we have today – our son, the CISCO Engineer told me so.  No matter what that technology may look like, remember that kids will always need us so make the most of every opportunity that comes your way to make a difference in their lives.