Izayah Morgan
Opinions Editor
Recently there's been an online discourse discussing the failings of Gen Alpha. We, as a society, blame their failures on strictly one group of people.
For example, blaming their lack of attention span on the ever increasing use of technology as a form of self regulation.
We even coined the term “iPad kid” to describe this issue.
And of course we somehow find a way to blame the parents for not raising these kids the “right way.”
As if we are in the same exact circumstances that previous generations were in. We did not have public access to the internet until the ’90s and didn't see the prevalence of social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat until the mid 2010s.
Millennials and Gen Z are not raising kids under the same world as even we were raised under.
I was born in 2003, all throughout elementary school the first few iPhones were coming out. However, most children did not even know what iPhones were.
I’ll tell a personal anecdote - I was around 12-13 years old when I got my first cell phone. My sister who is in Gen Alpha got her first phone at 9.
For safety purposes, and general use.
We even blame the teachers and educators for “failing to teach their students to read.”
This argument is understandable to have, as we want our children to read. It's an important skill to grow. However, I think we often forget how hard reading is to learn and improve. All throughout elementary school, kids were taken out to assess their reading level.
Reading and reading comprehension is hard to learn, much less teach.
All these factors lead people to blame others for the “failings” of Gen Alpha.
However, I do not want to blame the people for existing in society and trying to find an answer.
These online arguments may frustrate me but I must give grace to people and our frustrations.
We blame teachers, Millennials, Gen Z, Gen Alpha but never to take time to blame the system. It does not make sense to me, as we are using a system that is centuries old. Sitting in one room for up to hours and doing monotonous work to fill in the time.
Waking up as early as 6 a.m. to stay until 5 or 6 p.m. if there's an after school activity. Monotonous homework for possibly hours on end. Just to have to repeat the process for four more days.
Parents have to work grueling hours, oftentimes underpaid, and inflation is high. Yet we expect them to work 9-5, come home, cook dinner, study with their kids for hours (depending on their kids needs) and have time for themselves, then do it all again.
Teachers are underpaid, understaffed, and need to teach 30-plus kids, while attending to the IEP and needs of every child in their class. After working extreme hours, with only a 30 minute lunch, we expect them to go home and craft a lesson plan for tomorrow and possibly attend to the needs of their own child/children.
The system we live under provides very little time to accommodate ourselves. So instead we blame others for the failings of the people that we love.
My argument is not to offer a new system as I do not have the answer. But it is to acknowledge our failings to see the problems in our system for what they are. Systems designed by people who had no idea we would be the country we are right now.
The systems are broken, and people are just operating in them.
Blame the system, not the people.