The EPIC Generation - Part One

"I just don't understand today's young people."  I bet you've heard that before, perhaps many times.  I know I have.  Having served as an educator of young people since 1977, I have encountered Generation X, Millenials, Post-Millenials and now, the generation known as EPICs.  Strangely, I think I understand this last group better than all the rest.  Or maybe I just THINK I do.  Whatever, here is what I mean by the EPIC generation.

1.  Today's young people are Experiential.  They want to try new things and are willing to go outside their comfort zones (and to our dismay, their parents' comfort zones) to try the "latest and greatest".  Often their discretion is lacking, maturity weak and common sense not very common.  But if we can help them learn these things they can impact many people because they lack the fear to stretch beyond their zone.

2.  They are Participatory.  More than any generation in recent decades, today's young people are not content to sit on the sidelines and let other people get things done.  They want to be involved.  They want to be in the game, actively involved in things that are important to them.  These things that interest them may be either positive or negative, wholesome or otherwise, amoral, moral or immoral, but whatever they are passionate about will drive them to participate.

3.  They are Image driven.  Never in the history of man have we been able to have so many images flashed before our eyes, so rapidly, from so many sources.  TV, video games, iPods, iPads, smartphones, electronic billboards...the list goes on and on.  Today's generation of young people will be totally disengaged if their classroom activity doesn't include a significant degree of visual imagery, and I don't mean seeing the teacher standing at a podium talking.

4.  They are Connected.  Do you remember the days when the only connection we had, outside of snail mail and face to face conversation was a phone with a cord attached to a wall plug with a loud ring, a phone that was limited to one thing....talking?  This generation Skypes, Facetimes, Facebooks, Instagrams, Tweets with dozens of people every day, some of them from the other side of the world in real time!  Never has man been more connected with hundreds, even thousands of people every day and this generation has grown up knowing nothing else.

SO, how does that affect our parenting?  How does that affect the world of education and how we adjust our teaching styles?  How does that affect the way we hire people?  I will attempt to address some of these questions in the next blog post so stay tuned!!