UNDERSTANDING THE MILLENNIALS

SHEILA G. GARLIT

Millennials? Who are they? These are the Generation born from 1980 to 2025.

Millennial students’characteristics must be taken to consideration; they have a short attention span, so the teacher must be creative in presenting the lesson. These young generation love multi-tasking, they can listen while drawing or watching, this can boost their productivity and often distracting during the learning course, that is why it is essential to encourage goal setting and be flexible in their schedule strictly. Digital Pioneers, millennials were raised with technology.

They want to achieve their own goals in their own way at their own pace. (Ricigliano 1999). Rather than being told things they would rather construct their own learning assembling information tools and frameworks from variety of sources (Oblinger and Oblinger 2005).

The millennial language is another thing that parents or teachers are having problems, these millennials do have great ideas but love to put them in the shortest way so they use acronym to express their ideas like BTS – Behind the scene, OOTD- outfit of the day, TIA- thanks in advance, etc. Parents and teachers must be aware so they could be able to understand what they are trying to express.

These digital natives must be understood how they act, how they work, how they managed their stuffs, how they perceived things on their own for they always want convenience.

Understanding the millennials will motivate them do better things and become more productive, independent, creative, as Ahmad Allhendawi said, “We need to challenge the negative narrative about young people and involve them in the solution.” Yet we need to consider Dalai Lama’s perception that “When educating the minds of our youth, we must not forget to educate their hearts.” It means that the value of RESPECT must be instilled in their hearts, that they must be more considerate and loving; they must learn how to seek humility and wear kindness wherever they go.

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The author is Teacher III at Pampanga High School