Texting to Teaching: Reaching the Millennial Generation

This past fall I had lunch with a group of teachers at a regional meeting of our state's agricultural teacher association. Around the table sat teachers with a range of teaching experience that spanned the entire career spectrum - a few years to a few decades. The conversation at the table was pretty typical, the usual, "How are things going at your school?" This was followed by everyone's own rendition of the good, the bad and the ugly. A. very interesting topic of conversation emerged and remained in the back of my mind. You see, one of the teachers at the table was nearing retirement, so the conversation shifted to a discussion about the difficulty their department would have in replacing that teacher. The ongoing shortage of agriculture teachers in our state was certainly a concern on everyone's mind. While we discussed the current efforts being made to recruit more potential teachers into our profession a comment was made that would later provide the motivation for this article. From the mouth of the most experienced member of our group came something like his, "I have a hard time encouraging my students to teach agriculture given the kind of students we have today." The teacher continued by supporting this statement with some of the negatively perceived characteristics he observes in our current generation of students. He mentioned that kids today are disrespectful and all they want to do is use their cell phones, listen to their iPods and send text messages. I have to admit, at the time, the argument did seem to have merit. Through personal experience and observations of my student teachers, I'm quite familiar with the challenges teachers face when trying to engage agriculture students in the learning process. With all the electronic information and social networking opportunities students have at their fingertips, how do you compete for their attention and keep them engaged in the lesson at hand? It certainly demands a great deal of effort and expertise to reach today's secondary agriculture students and keep them actively engaged. After giving it some thought on my drive home, I had a revelation. Who better to reach this generation of students and teach them in a way that suits their learning preferences then students from the very same generation, one commonly referred to as the "Millennial Generation." Who are the Millennials? Millennial are young people who came of age in the 1990's when technology was booming and finding its way into our everyday lives. The oldest of this generation, spanning from about 1980 to 2000, are now preparing to graduate from college and enter their chosen professions. To help understand the Millenials, you must consider the world they have grown up in. These students don't remember having heard a telephone actually "ring." They have always been able to get cash from an ATM machine. Their primary source of news is the internet. And for the big one, the Kennedy tragedy for them is a plane crash, not a presidential assassination. Considering the many differences that exist, it really isn't hard to understand why those of us from Generation X and the Baby Boomers find it difficult to relate to the Millennials. Fortunately for us, encouraging students to join the profession is about more than understanding why your students send you a text message rather than walking into the next room to ask a question. …