I knew eventually someone would write this. I’m just glad it was an Xer, a member of the “demographic that has been making teachers’ and school administrators’ jobs a pain in the butt for more than a decade.” Check out Susan Gregory Thomas’s current article, A Teacher’s Guide to Gen X Parents, in the February 2010 issue of Edutopia.
Man, we Xers can be a difficult lot. In the last post, more than 80 percent of us were planning on ditching our current employers, and in this post, we’re giving teachers a hard time. Let’s hope in the next post we all get together and beat up Pat Robertson.
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Neil Howe has also written a major piece for the periodical School Administrator. Check out his feature, Meet Mr. and Mrs. Gen X: A New Parent Generation with the tagline, strategies for school leaders when dealing with customer-service expectations, self-interest, and stealth-fighter tactics.
Reading the Neil Howe article, I died laughing at the characterization and at myself! This was the best part because it is so true! “Today, behold the era of the Gen-X “stealth-fighter parent.” Stealth-fighter parents do not hover. They choose when and where they will attack. If the issue seems below their threshold of importance, they save their energy and let it go entirely. But if it crosses their threshold and shows up on their radar, they will strike — rapidly, in force and often with no warning.”
I think the other article you posted explains the why. “But the most important discovery was relearning a truism from Psychology 101: If you want to know what’s unhealed from your own childhood, have children. Key to decoding our parental behavior is understanding that we are, albeit often unconsciously, doing for our children what no one did for us.”
I really like the part, “will strike – rapidly, in force and often with no warning.” Yeah, that’s me when it comes to the kiddies. I also love that second quote and haven’t read it in awhile. Thanks for putting it back on my radar. It describes me to a T. Thanks for stopping by Mariam!
I found this particularly interesting. As the parent of a special needs child I have adopted the “pick my battles” attitude which seems to fall in line a bit with his description. Man, I hate falling into stereotypes. 🙂
some teachers deserve a hard time as does the crappy system …
we are remote, we are low socio economic, we are disadvantaged, we are indigenous and what do we get … teachers who are less than one year post degree experience – HEllO !!! no life experience to call on, no understanding of the culture, no understanding of the dynamics of remote living – it is criminal sending them up here to whoop whoop … stupid government.
grumpy le
I passed this link on to my sister (principal) and my daughter (teacher). Thought they might be interested. Thanks for sharing!