Teaching GenZ: The Emoji Generation That Forgets to Look Up

Ah, Gen Z. The generation that can’t live without their phones and wouldn’t push themselves to learn unless there’s a viral challenge involved and proudly brandishes the title of “feel-all-know-nothing.” The bright youth of our nation, yet somehow dimly lit in the corridors of curiosity and soft skills.

They are the maestros of attention spans – all four glorious seconds of it – before their eyes dart back to the glow of their screens. Speak to them, and you risk “embarrassing” them. Nudge them to think, and suddenly you’re “toxic.” They don’t want to be spoken to or taught anything that can’t be Googled in under five seconds. Why wrestle with a textbook when the answers are just a swipe away?

Their world is a digital carnival of emojis, abbreviations, and a never-ending scroll of virtual validation. The warm winter sun? A spring breeze? The rains? Forget soaking it in; they’re too busy filming it for Instagram Stories. They inhale pixels and exhale hashtags. They talk about mental health as if they’ve trademarked the term. While that awareness is commendable, the irony lies in their endless pursuit of an algorithm-driven rat race. Spoiler: if you’re in the rat race, you’re still a rat.

Marks and attendance? Yes, please. Actual learning? No, thank you. Life isn’t a classroom; it’s a leaderboard, and they’re determined to climb it, one dopamine hit at a time. Old-school effort – breaking a sweat, facing a challenge head-on, learning through grit – is blasphemous to them. Heaven forbid they try anything that doesn’t have an app or a hack.

So how does one bridge this chasm between generations? Speak their language. Meet them where they are. Use visual texts, track everything in “metrics,” and turn every lesson into a bite-sized deliverable. Let them immerse themselves in their beloved machines until they’re utterly sick of it. Because, as with all immoderation, there’s a limit even to their love for screens.

Gen Z isn’t hopeless; they’re just hooked – and perhaps it’s time we figured out how to help them look up from their screens and back into the world. Who knows? They might even notice the sun one day. Until then, here’s to teaching in emojis and TikToks.