The students from Y2K

A few of my fellow new and seasoned educators were chatting about the students in the 9th, 10th, and 11th grades this year - mostly the 9th graders from last year who are now (mostly) 10th graders.

Now, 9th graders are a species of their own, granted. Last year, there was something especially unusual about these kids. Something in their attitudes led most of the teachers to wonder why they were so jaded and indifferent - much more so than the typical teenager. A common thread among this particular bunch - across all schools and districts in our region - was that they seemed to be indifferent to consequences. We educators wondered what about the kids from this year was so different.

These are the Y2K kids. These students are all about 14, 15 years old this year. Nearly seven years ago, according to the media and computer 'experts', the world was going to end. Maybe not literally - but there were times when it seemed that way. Everywhere you looked, the Y2K was coming! Banks sent out notices about their preparedness for impending disasters. Every company hired whatever computer tech available to update their hardware in a panic to retain their data. People built bomb shelters and cleaned out old, forgotten fallout shelters from the cold war era. Emergency preparedness kits were flying off the shelves just as fast as people stock piled canned goods, batteries, and toilet tissue.

We all watched with a morbid curiosity as the ball dropped over Times Square.

Then nothing happened.
The world didn't end.

Imagine being a 7 or 8 year-old child when all of this is going on around you.

While these students as 9th graders made teaching quite difficult last year, they all seem to be doing well this year - especially in their service-learning projects. It would appear that having first-hand experience in affecting (positively) someone else's environment through service learning projects, is helping these students to learn about consequences - both positive and negative ones.

Anyway, it will be interesting to follow these students in the next few years.