Generation Gap

AI-generated illustration

I always believed that generation gap wouldn’t be a problem for me because I had failed to grow up psychologically. My hairs greyed and my skin has begun to show some wrinkles. But I can climb up the stairs with greater ease than a teenager of today. I can challenge my young students to go on a trek in the mountains and I’m sure I’ll conquer greater heights than them with much ease. More importantly, I can smile more sweetly than them. I am more open to new ideas, my blood boils at injustices unlike theirs, I have dreams, ideals and principles…

I was condemned to go back to the classroom. It’s for a short while, of course. I’m substituting someone. Initially I was excited. I thought I was getting an opportunity to be young once again. But the actual classrooms have all been terrible disappointments. The teenagers in front of me look so senile, behave like grumpy octogenarians who yawn all the way from morning to evening unable to understand or appreciate anything that’s around.

Generation gap!

There’s this guy whom I presented in an earlier post. Let me call him Bub. I never had any reason to earn Bub’s displeasure at any time because he was never my student and I never had any encounter with him at all anywhere. But from the day I entered his class recently, he has given me nothing more than scowls. And a few questions about my pronunciation. Though my pronunciation turns out to be correct every time according to Google (the latest being Hanukkah), Bub is still after my blood for reasons I haven’t deciphered yet. A friend suggests that this is a typical case of generation gap.

Bub must be seeing his grandpa in you, my friend tells me. Just find out whether this boy had serious issues with his grandpa or even grandma. I have put a few guys on this mission. Why would anyone hate someone without any reason? Generation gap doesn’t sound good enough a reason to me. Grandpa-figure sounds a better answer.

But then I am not sure again. There are a few students who seem to find it difficult to establish any meaningful relationship with me unlike until a couple of years ago. And it appears that my age is the problem. There’s no other logical explanation I can find.

A student who is very friendly asked me a question today. What do I have for breakfast? I told her about my simple but wholesome breakfast and asked why she cared. “Your energy, sir. I’m surprised by it. You possess much more energy than people of your age.” She thinks breakfast makes the difference. She has not heard about the importance of attitudes, apparently. That’s the real generation gap.

Now I’m wondering whether the generation gap in my case has done a somersault which is the root of all issues with my young students. I’m younger than most of them! At heart.