Listen to millennial learners
Many of today’s millennials spend time in universities and academic institutions learning, growing within and beyond the four walls of the classroom. We are paying close attention to national issues and offer our young take on large-scale solutions. But we are the same group of people who feel the need to be constantly heard and be brought into the loop.
We do not belong to the previous generations that made massive entries in history books, but we see a stark similarity with them. Before Jose Rizal created Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, he was on the streets of Madrid, participating in university demonstrations. Before Emilio Jacinto became the Utak ng Katipunan, he had to struggle through law school with Manuel Quezon and Sergio Osmena. Before Nick Joaquin became a National Artist for Literature, he went beyond the confines of classroom work by reading all the historical fiction he could lay his hands on.
Flash forward to today and this young generation is not new to the country’s extreme political dilemmas, financial meltdown and degradation of moral values. Somehow, our ambitious initiatives and active want for social change are also catalyzed by our academic and institutional roots. But what is our edge as millennial students? In a rut of “hopelessness” where parents, elders and others from the Boomer sect tag us as “entitled, selfish, and lazy,” we value passion, human dignity, and patriotism amid a time of ignorance, apathy and cruelty.
Contrary to what is said about us, somehow, it seems that our generation is more optimistic, more flexible, more driven. As millennial learners and future leaders, we are given the immense pressure to fix the nation’s problems. Alternatively, we offer thousands of solutions to tribulations introduced in our textbooks, readings, and classroom discussions. We spend 13 hours a day saturated in print, digital, broadcast and news media. We effortlessly adapt to technology by haggling information and responding to them through our phones, laptops, and television screens.
As modern students of universities and of life, we acknowledge the fact that there are bigger lessons outside the classroom. As modern students of universities and of life, we fight for the truth by constantly combatting “fake news” with substantial ideas and insights among each other. We come in thousands walking the outskirts of EDSA and Luneta to share battles with the older generations who experienced violence and injustice before us.
As modern students of universities and of life, we point out what’s wrong with the government, the media and other institutions surrounding us. We write about them, we clamor about them, we strive to right their wrongs together. As millennial learners with everything accessible right at our fingertips, we grew up stirred and wrecked by big political, social, and moral dilemmas that affect our personal principles. In fact, all these compel us to be more reflective of our purpose, of our desperate craving to make an impact, regardless of our courses and future job titles.
To our parents, relatives, and other Boomer friends, please mentor us, discuss with us and have faith in us. We do not learn only to be silenced. We learn in order to become relevant.
In a rut of “hopelessness” where parents, elders and others f rom the Boomer sect tag us as “entitled, selfish, and lazy,” we value passion, human dignity, and patriotism amid a time of ignorance, apathy and cruelty.