The Facebook Generation

As a novice teacher, nothing is more unsettling than being friended on Facebook by a bunch of your 10-year-old students. Actually, that’s not true. Being confronted by said children the next day at school demanding to know why you’re dissing them by not accepting the Facebook request, is a tad more awkward.

Now, I’m only 24 and I consider myself to be fairly “with it.” (Crap I think I just proved myself wrong by using that phrase.) However, the more time I spent with these students, the more I realize that the notion of childhood is drastically different than it was 10 years ago. “How so?” you might ask. Example number one:

(REAL conversation)

Me: When I was in 5^th grade, we didn’t have cell phones or Facebook. Even gaming consoles were different, I got my Nintendo 64 when I was in 4^th grade and that was a big deal.

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