Millennial Students: Ageism or Observation?

I'm teaching a course on iPhone development at UNB this April. I'm quite excited about it, and while I've had chances to practice orating at UNB and I've been a lab teaching assistant for over a year, I don't feel that I'm experienced enough to design and deliver a full course. To help me, I'm taking a 6-weekend long course in undergraduate teaching. Since it is unusual for an undergraduate to teach at a university, I'm the lone undergrad among Masters students, PhD candidates, and professors.

A part of the course is focused on understanding the typical 20-year-old student of today. We're dubbed "millennials", a term I disliked the first time I ever heard it. When I did more research into the topic for the course, I was not impressed.

Let's consider:

When I meet a member of the "baby boomer" generation, my first impression isn't tainted with the idea that they're a self-important jerk who helped destroy the environment. This is on account of two import reasons: the fact that baby boomers are mostly entitled jerks is probably not true and even if it was, my opinion of the actions and characteristics attributed to boomers certainly shouldn't affect my initial opinion of someone I've only just met.

When we have academic literature telling us that millennials "feel special", have a "low tolerance for failure", and that we're "sheltered" by our "helicopter parents", we are attributing a social schema to individuals that is not necessarily earned. Although these types of articles are meant to inform educators in order to make them better teachers, they also inform their opinions and prejudices. This is the danger: having these preconceptions of young people will affect their opinion of individual members of that demographic.

While the literature does cite some commendable qualities of millennials, such as our confidence or our drive to succeed, I can't help but feel judged. I can't voice my concerns because my complaints are framed in the context that "I feel special", and I am dismissed.

So what do we do? Clearly teachers should try to understand their students, but there is a need not to overgeneralize. I would recommend that educators reserve judgement toward individuals and only let impressions of young people be shaped by their actions as individuals. This, I think, is sound advice for everyone.