Summary Of Lament For The Igeneration

I had only been a College professor for three years when Gregory Levey’s controversial and much-discussed magazine piece “Lament for the iGeneration” was published in 2009. I interpreted it as a cautionary tale: if we’re in the hands of the next generation, we’re really screwed. Levey, a Ryerson communications professor, basically argued he’s pretty sure education has tanked; the iGeneration (those born in the 1990s) can’t handle post-secondary learning; and that the gap between the schools and the kids is too huge to mend. Dismal stuff, but I understood where Levey was coming from—kind of.

I was terrified when I first started teaching. I didn’t have any teacher training. I got hired via email. There was no mentoring, no lesson plans, no prep. One day I was writing a magazine column in my crap clothes from home, and …show more content…
I hate that I have to say it, but now I don’t take it personally. I still worry that they won’t get the crux of the lesson if they don’t give me their full attention, but I know they’re not mentally flitting around out of disrespect. Instead of finger wagging, I immersed myself in learning what makes them tick. Asking them to drop their tech would be like asking you to wear your shoes on the wrong feet. It’s do-able, of course, but does it ever feel wrong. What I found is that this generation multi-task very well, and that the cynicism surrounding the iGeneration is dead wrong. Not only are the kids alright, they could be the best generation yet.

My cynical generation is great at slapping critical labels on the iGeneration. We do it all the time. “Everyone dumps on the youngest generation,” says Giselle Kovary, co-founder and Managing Partner of Toronto-based ngen People Performance Inc., which specializes in managing generational differences in the workplace. “But this generation is scary