Cultivating the Next Generation

No, I didn't cultivate this kale, but I wanted a strong visual!

“Mom, you want to come to the store with me to look at phone accessories?” A refusal was on the tip of my tongue—I wasn’t in the least interested in phone accessories, and there was this stack of grading to do. Fortunately before I could get that answer out, my better angel inserted another thought into my brain: “Wait—your 13-year-old daughter just invited her mother to spend time with her. Who cares what the ostensible reason is! Accept!” 

In the intervening 16 years I've remembered that moment as the one that crystalized my understanding that when I value people, when I’m truly interested in them, I choose to spend time with them on their terms. What I’ve also learned since then is that even if the activity or topic itself is not intrinsically interesting to me, if I am truly interested in that person, I will be curious about what they do, what they get out of it, what intrigues or gratifies or delights them and why it does.

My kids are no longer adolescents, but as I continue to teach adolescents, I continue to be intrigued by these burgeoning image bearers of God that enter my classroom, by their world that is becoming more and more different from mine, and by the challenge of understanding them and their world—both to connect them to significant content area knowledge, skills, and understandings and to just help them on their way to fulfilling all the potential God has given them to live wise, compassionate, joyful lives. I recently read a book that compiled a lot of what I’ve read and learned on this topic in a helpful, clear way, with plenty of support and examples—Cultivate: Forming the Emerging Generation through Life-on-Life Mentoring by Jeff Myers. I found the information useful for either specific one-on-one mentoring, or the broader but still significant relationships between a teacher and her class. I especially appreciated the positive approach (every generation is different, each with its own blind spots and strengths) and the abundance of practical examples of questions and conversations.




The first of 3 parts focuses on the background: that relationship fosters growth, characteristics of the emerging generation, and how to build mentoring relationships. I especially appreciated the summary of research establishing the importance of relationship to learning: Students’ sense of being liked, respected, valued, cared for, accepted, and nurtured by a teacher is significantly associated with students’ motivation, engaging emotionally, cognitively, and behaviorally in class; internalizing the teachers’ goals and values; and expecting success (30-31). The way to establish that relationship across a generation gap is to seek to meaningfully share the different life experiences that each generation has. “People committed to understanding seek to listen well and ask questions” (42). 

As I said, one of the things I appreciated was the many specific examples of questions and conversations. For example, in identifying 12 distinctives of the emerging generation, with pitfalls and strengths for each, the author also gives examples of ways to explore each. The first distinctive is comfort with complexity and ambiguity as opposed to right answers and the bottom line. The author urges the mentor to: 

[A]void overly simplistic answers or suggestions. Acknowledge ambiguities and complexities that are real, and be humble about what you don’t understand or can’t explain. Invite a conversation about mystery in the following ways:

• "Let’s talk about what we can know and what we can’t know. Why do you think we have uncertainty in some areas? What are some things you are certain of?" /
• "One of the great things about a life of faith is that it is adventurous—it is a mystery. What are some things about your faith that you can’t wrap your mind around? What are some mysteries of your faith?"
• "Sometimes life just doesn’t add up. Are there experiences or things you’ve been through that just don’t make sense to you? What about them feels contradictory to what you would expect?"

Responding to a difficult issue can be tricky with the emerging generation. Here are some suggestions on how to respond clearly without ever-simplifying complex issues:

• "Your question is a tough one and I don’t want to brush it off with a simplistic answer. Can you give me some time to think it over and get back to you?"
• "Here’s what I think, but this isn’t an issue I would take a bullet over."
• "I’ve spent a lot of tie thinking about that myself. Let me tell you some of the thoughts I had along the way, and what I ultimately ended up concluding." (43-44) 

While discussing 6 components of mentoring (modeling, friendship, advising, coaching, teaching, and sponsoring), Myer puts coaching front and center—briefly described as “listening and asking powerful questions to support someone’s success” (68). He devotes chapter 4 to coaching, and it’s an excellent introduction or a concise refresher, including things like 6 types of unhelpful questions, 3 coaching skills, 5 conversation-altering words (“Tell me more about that” [84]), 6 other things to do when you aren’t asking questions (85). All of these things are helpful in teaching as well.

The middle section covers 3 important areas of flourishing to address: “What is the purpose of my life?”, “What is true?”, and “What difference do I make?” (89). Myers devotes an entire chapter to each, and as an English teacher, I use each of these questions as essential questions in my courses, so these chapters are full of helpful resources, questions, topics, conversations, approaches. The final section contains practical how-tos from getting started to safety standards to monitoring your own spiritual growth. As a teacher, this was the least helpful part, but it would be essential for anyone wanting to mentor young people outside of a well-equipped institutional setting.

This book will definitely stay on my shelf as a source of questions, conversations, and resources for significant explorations of the concerns that crowd my classroom, and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to further their ability to connect with young people in significant ways. The life experiences of my students are somewhat different from mine, but that difference doesn’t have to be scary or alienating—with true curiosity, wise questions, and good listening, it can be the catalyst for conversations that we all learn from!

P.S. Two additional resources for connecting with young people: 
(1) “The Danger of Teacher Nostalgia” on Cult of Pedagogy (especially for teachers)
(2) “The Culture Translator” by Axis (for anyone wanting to develop a relationship with young people and curious about the very foreign world they seem to inhabit—parents, grandparents, teachers, youth pastors, or others). A free weekly newsletter highlights 3 current hot topics in teen culture, gives a brief explanation with links for further exploration, and suggests questions for talking about it with kids. For example, this week’s (Oct. 4, 2019) addresses a rising TikTok teen influencer, the movie Joker, and Justin Beiber’s church wedding.