The staff members of DBTI had a Faculty Development Program(FDP) from 26th - 27th July 2022. The whole program was designed to understand the Generation Z, Multiple Intelligence Theory, Media Addiction and 'Good to Great' Teachers. Our resource person was none other than Rev. Fr. Ashok who has varied experiences in dealing with youngsters through training and animation programs. He elaborated the topics to the best of our understanding and the day’s session started with the objective ‘What kind of teacher for the youth of today?’.
As a teacher, it is very important for me to understand the generation ‘Z’. It is a group of people who are captivated by the internet and their age varies from ten to twenty-three years. They are digital natives, pragmatic and financial minded, thinking fast forward, prefer independence, competitive and entrepreneurial.
It is not easy to know the human mind. There are multitalented students in a class. In this session we learned about the mind theories like; split brain theory and multiple intelligence theory of a gardener. It is important to know how we understand the need of the students. There are eight types of multiple intelligence, all are important to handle the generation Z.
In the session that followed we learned about the digital addiction. There are many facts with regard to the gen Z. They are addicted to digital games, social media, online gambling, pornography, online shopping, etc. Because of this they do waste lot of time on social media and digital interaction due to which there is no time for relationship with family and friends. They are indeed depressed, stressed, short tempered, and abused in different ways. They have different types of threats; physical, mental, moral, social and intellectual.
In my interactions with Gen Z, I am much more likely to listen closely to what they say and to refrain from making a judgment about their ideas, values and behaviors based on an assumption that they are wrong and I am right. They often do things differently, have some different values and have some different ideas about the future than I do. I appreciate and trust that they often have a new and better approach. Many of us who are slightly older have a different understanding of how the world works. It is easy for us to assume that the world will continue to operate much the same way as it was and that the young people need to adapt to that older way of living to a great extent. But the young people are necessarily future-oriented and they tend to believe that the digital-age future is quite different from the past industrial era.
We have to rethink weather we are in the target group of the students? So, that they can believe and respect their teachers. As a teacher I have to visualize ahead of the students. We can say that the new generation of students will bring changes to teaching and learning system. As teachers we will have to find ourselves adapting our instructional styles to meet their challenges, interests, struggles and goals.
Mr. Amit Kumar Gautam