Geoff Marsh, Head of Frensham Schools
In their recent book Generation Alpha, Mark McCrindle and Ashley Fell begin Chapter Two with the following quote:
“Youth today love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority, no respect for older people and talk nonsense when they should be working. They contradict their parents, talk too much in company, guzzle their food, lay their legs on the table and tyrannise their elders.”
When I’m out and about in the community, I often hear similar sentiments expressed about today’s young people. As educators and parents, we know that children – just as this quote suggests -can be difficult to understand and harder still to guide. But this is not a new phenomenon. In fact, the quote is attributed to Socrates (470–399 BC).
What is different, however, are the characteristics that define our current generation of students. As McCrindle and Fell describe, they are digital, social, global, mobile and visual. These are not traits we would have applied to previous generations. So how do we, as educators, adapt our teaching and interpretation of curriculum to meet the learning needs of a generation whose perception of the world is markedly different from that of their parents, and certainly different from educators of my age (not quite a baby boomer, but close)?
Adding to this complexity is the reality that our current students will be the ones to live through the upheaval likely to be caused by artificial intelligence (AI).
When societies undergo great change, we tend to give those periods names: the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution. Some social commentators are now suggesting we are entering the next great era of change—the Digital Transformation.
Frensham, like most schools, is busily preparing for the onslaught of AI. It is already reshaping how we assess students. Many of us use AI to write communiqués, contracts, letters and emails. Students are bypassing traditional forms of research, textbooks and online resources, and going directly to AI for answers to both simple and complex questions. The quality of these answers is often debatable, but there is no doubt that AI is now the first port of call for many students.
As educators, we are both worried and excited. Worried by the potential pitfalls – including the vulnerability of our children online – but also excited by the opportunities to improve learning and transform, for the better, how we operate.
Over the past six months, we have run a series of Professional Learning Days with our staff. We have developed school-wide AI policies for both education and operations. We are including AI in our risk matrices and operational thinking. We are considering how best to combat digital attacks generated by AI on our infrastructure, students and staff. And yet, we still feel like we are not quite ahead of the wave.
However, at the heart of the matter is this: while the challenges facing this generation are undeniably different, the nature and character of our students remain remarkably consistent.
Our Year 12 class of 2025 is a shining example of this. They are fine young people, thoughtful, principled, and deeply engaged with the world around them. They may hold different views from previous generations, shaped by the digital age and global connectivity, but their aspirations are familiar and enduring: to be positive contributors to the world.
And I would argue that they are better prepared and better equipped to do so than any generation before them.
They are resilient, adaptable, and informed. They are learning to navigate complexity with confidence and compassion. They are not afraid to ask hard questions, nor to seek meaningful answers. And they are doing all of this within a school community that values integrity, courage and service.At Frensham, we celebrate our students, not just for what they achieve, but for who they are. The world may be changing rapidly, but the spirit of our young people remains strong. And that certainly gives us every reason to be hopeful.