Making It

What Today's Kids Need for Tomorrow's World

Stephanie Malia Krauss

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781119577072
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Consulenza nella didattica

Discover how to help young people "make it" in a rapidly changing world

Author Stephanie Malia Krauss gets it. Every day she works with leaders across the country as they upgrade learning experiences to better equip young people for a changing world. A mother, former teacher and school leader, Stephanie knows firsthand how hard it is to balance school and program requirements with young people's needs. In Making It: What Today's Kids Need for Tomorrow's World, she lays out what adults can do to get young people ready for the future. What you learn may surprise you.

With so much changing so fast—accelerated by the impacts of COVID-19—the most in-demand jobs and skills of today may be obsolete by the time our youngest become adults. For kids to be ready for this new reality, they must acquire four critical "currencies" that will serve them well, whatever their future holds: credentials, competencies, connections, and cash. This book focuses on how to prioritize these four key outcomes whenever and wherever learning happens. The author shares research and experience to help you understand and apply a human-centered and future-focused lens directly to your classroom, school, program, or at home.

• Learn about how the world and workforce is changing, and what that means for the education and preparation young people need
• Understand how these changes are impacting young people, reshaping their childhoods and transitions into adulthood
• Glean practical information and ideas you can use to help young people—at every age and stage—to gain readiness "currencies" in the form of credentials, competencies, connections, and cash
• Challenge your beliefs about what knowledge, experiences and resources are most important for kids to have, and what a college- and career-ready education really requires
• Discover community-wide strategies that prioritize equity, learning and readiness for the future

This book will benefitteachers, counselors, youth workers, parents, school board members, and state education leaders alike. Whether you work in K-12, youth development, or you just want to know how to best support the kids in your life, you will find a timely and useful resource putting young people first and modernizing their learning experiences for the better.

PART I
A Changing World

Chapter 1: Today’s Kids

Chapter 2: Tomorrow’s World

CHAPTER 1
Today's Kids

My older son started asking for a smartphone in first grade. He seemed desperate and asked obsessively. By six, he was convinced he was the only kid in school without one. When I said no, he shifted gears and asked for a smart watch. He and his brother have grown up online and with digital devices in easy reach. Sometimes I think they feel as fondly about these devices as their beloved childhood stuffed animals, Fernando and Snuggles.

Early on, I had a failed attempt at laissez-faire parenting surrounding my kids’ technology use. That changed when their older god-siblings spent a summer with us, and we suddenly catapulted from conversations about general “tech time” into complex conversations about online gaming and the safe use of social media. I was totally unprepared and sought counsel from Google and mom blogs. After deliberation, we said yes to just one game. Everything was fine until my godson started talking about his online friends. He and I spent several hours reviewing his “friends’” profiles and found that most were adults who openly referenced drug use and sex. Somehow, all of them had been able to create accounts in the kids-only portal.

As if I wasn't Luddite enough already—and in a stroke of less-than-perfect parenting—I banned the game and hid the devices in places too high for the kids to reach. I justified my actions, pointing to the Silicon Valley parents who don't let their kids use iPads, sending them to tech-free schools and getting their nannies to leave cell phones at home.¹ I told myself that going tech-free was the right move, because smartphones might cause cancer² and too much social media might make my kids sad, sick, or lonely.³

That parenting moment may not have been my best, but I was worried and wanted to slow down the full immersion my kids have—often without me—into an online world—a world I don't always understand. It is a world of incredible access and opportunity, but also risk and exposure.

Digital Natives

Today's kids have a much different relationship with and need for technology than adults.

I was in middle school when my family got our first desktop computer. I have grown up with the release and rise of personal devices—experiencing the evolution from bulky desktops and “car phones,” to more portable laptops and flip phones, and now to sleek and smart devices that are always with us.

Meanwhile, my kids were born into a world with technologies that were already smart, fast, thin, and available in a range of colors and sizes. They are digital natives. My older son, born in 2010, is three years younger than the iPhone, Twitter, Kindle, Airbnb, and Bitcoin.⁴ He knew how to get to his favorite smartphone app before he could walk or talk.

Here are some generational differences in common technology and tools between today's parents and their kids:

A COMPARISON OF CHILDHOOD TECHNOLOGY USE
Today’s Parents	Today’s Kids
Encyclopedia Britannica	Siri and Alexa
Tetris	Minecraft and Roblox
Cassette tapes and CDs	Spotify and YouTube
Blockbuster	Netflix and Disney+
Department stores	Amazon
Landlines	Smartphones and watches
Folded notes	Snapchat and Instagram
Dial-up internet	Broadband WiFi

Disconnecting kids from devices can be as painful as separating them from a best friend. When my boys were little, we gave these meltdowns a name: the “Triple T”—a Technology Temper Tantrum. It generally involved a combination of shouting, crying, storming off, and sometimes lashing out with hands and feet. In our house, the Triple T was the worst when the boys had to suddenly power down a device, cutting them off from sudden short bursts of on-demand content. While the Triple T has changed over the years, I feel like it is still lurking in the background.

For adolescents, digital devices can be as important as a best friend, and as frequently used as a body part. My mom once asked a high school class what they would grab in a fire. Every single student said smartphone. Not one said family, pets, or photos. For today's kids, smartphones are a vital way to stay connected and plugged in.

Technology Dependence

This intense technology attachment has been studied by psychology professor Jean M. Twenge. She found that today's kids would rather be on their phone than with their families, and many confessed to liking digital devices more than people.⁵ Twenge has dubbed this generation the “iGen.” In her interviews, young people shared that they sleep with smartphones under pillows and wake up throughout the night to check for new notifications. Her surveys show that today's kids spend up to six hours a day on smart technologies—texting, on social media, online, and gaming.

My own conversations back that up. One mom told me about a niece who was having seizures brought on by the video games she was playing. Her parents were shocked by how hard it was for their daughter to give up those video games—even knowing that it was compromising her health and well-being.

While this is different from our childhoods, it may be similar to our work lives. According to my phone analytics, as a remote worker I spend three to four hours a day on my phone—some combination of calls, texting, and checking social media and email. Combine that with the amount of time I spend on my computer and I'm suddenly on par with, if not even more plugged in than today's kids. Since COVID-19, that time online has only increased. I'm now more dependent than ever on Zoom and other video technologies as well as online productivity platforms. Unfortunately, we don't know enough about what counts as too much tech and its long-term effects—especially for those who have been doing it since they were toddlers. The science simply hasn't caught up.

Technology Disparities

Technology dependence took on a whole new meaning when schools shut down because of COVID-19. Suddenly, continuous learning had to do with having continuous access to a digital device and the internet. Unfortunately, many were without. In extreme cases, young people were completely cut off.

One teacher told me that he showed up to work one day and was told to put together printed packets for his students. Teachers were being sent home for the rest of the year. His school was notoriously low-tech and underresourced, so his students were left with very little support and schooling during the shutdown.

I also heard from a number of district and school staff about how those first few weeks were spent as a mad dash to get digital devices to students who didn't have them. Often, even that was not enough. Many of those students lacked a strong enough internet signal to plug in, join class, and submit work. This will continue to be an issue until internet is seen as a utility instead of a commodity. For now, a connection and the resulting continuity of learning is only available to those who can afford it.

There are early indicators that the learning loss associated with the COVID-19 pandemic will be far worse for those who lacked the basic and smart technologies so many families, including mine, take for granted. The digital divide illuminated by COVID-19, exists across race, class, and geographic lines. Learning is toughest for students with the fewest resources, which now includes anyone without a strong or reliable digital connection.

Hyperconnectivity

Can any good come from this need for hyperconnectivity? Between 2006 and 2009, a team of researchers led by Don Tapscott set out to better understand young millennials (the generation before iGen). Their findings are described in the book Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation Is Changing Your World. Tapscott's team found that when young people have ample access to technology, they seem to be more collaborative and able to get things done faster. Digital natives seem to be more informed on world affairs and current events than previous generations. Tapscott hoped that might contribute to an increased appreciation for diversity and more altruistic attitudes.

On the other hand, devices can also lead young p...

Table of contents

• COVER
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT
• DEDICATION
• PREFACE
• FOREWORD BY KAREN PITTMAN
• FOREWORD BY MARIA FLYNN
• INTRODUCTION
• PART I: A Changing World
• PART II: Life Currencies
• PART III: Currency-Building
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR
• INDEX
• END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT