Students Surpassing Parents
Besides being the first in their families to attend college, certain students may be on their way to becoming "smarter" than the people who raised them.
The school year has just started, and whether you are a first generation college student or following the family tradition, we all reach that point of conscious adulthood sometime or another. Being able to speak to your guardians as intellectuals and not just from elder to pupil is just as important. As college students we are constantly learning new ideas and ways of thinking about the world that we may advance the people we look up to.
Being a first generation myself, there is no doubt there are times that communication about certain academic subjects are more difficult to speak with my parents rather than others.
“I may have different applied knowledge,” said Santa Monica College student Kamari Carter, 21, who isn’t knew to a family of collegians. Other students agreed on one thing, conversations with their elders ended when it hit a certain peak in education; the peak that presents itself when someone realizes what they're saying no longer has a place with the person who they're conversing with.
Do we intentionally dumb ourselves down? As harsh as it sounds, the possibility is real. Our guardians are the ones who filled our heads up and even if it wasn’t with very much. But how do we as students try to keep what we’re learning away from the people we want to share it all with?
This is nothing knew, children have been challenging their parents’ thoughts and ways of living for years, but in a generation where “school is cool” and opportunity is tangible for everyone, there can be new insight to those who have guardians who weren’t as lucky or financially fortunate in past generations.
An elder can argue that what they were taught or the way they were taught don't match the level of today's students. There are discussions now that would not have been a topic in class twenty years ago.
How do we take what we’ve learned and apply it within a liberal or conservative family?
Of course there will be things that’s parents always have the upper hand on, such as wisdom. If we were to say that wisdom comes with age then we wouldn’t exactly be consulting the learning experience that aging comes with.
But it is possible to not include age when considering if that is the only factor of wisdom. Since wisdom comes with experience, a student can very well surpass a parent intellectually and academically. And as appalling as the scenario may be, it is OK to have a superior thinking advantage compared to your parents. Stop trying to compete.