What are the three of the most important traits and values that the young generation of today must develop?
These are curiosity, critical thinking, and character.
Stay curious, it means that you must always yearn to learn and discover new knowledge, new skills, and new information that will be useful to your studies and your long-term goals. Along with curiosity, you must also develop creativity. It’s about using the imagination in order to generate new ideas, a form of expression or finding solutions. Human beings are innately creative, meaning we can all be creative on a daily basis and in all situations. You belong to Generation Alpha, born from 2010 to 2020s, and you are considered “the first ever generation to grow up in a completely digital world, surrounded by phones and tablets.” And so, this brings a lot of opportunities that in our generation did not exist or were not available before. During our time, we did not have Google, YouTube or Facebook to use for our assignment and papers, we go to our library and read books for references. We do not have videos to watch to solve our problems, instead we try to repair or discover how we can come up with a solution to an issue we are experiencing. Meaning, everything now is easy as 123, with just a click on our computers, we will find anything that we need. The challenge for you is to develop skills and knowledge without too much reliance on the Internet, and go back to basics. We need to learn the foundational skills of reading, writing, computing, because technology has made it easier for all of us nowadays. Artificial intelligence is here, but we need to veer away from its negative repercussions and focus on the advantages it brings to our lives.
With this development, this is where we your guardians, your teachers, and parents must come in. We need to remind you to be cautious and critical because not everything we see and hear on the Internet is useful and accurate. This is why, along with curiosity, and creativity, you must also develop critical thinking. The term critical comes from the Greek word kritikos meaning “able to judge or discern”, meaning at your own, you must be able to discern and analyze facts, make observations and consequently, form rational judgments and evaluation.
Lastly, character is above all, more important than competency. Anyone can learn skills and knowledge that are required of them in the fulfillment of his/her tasks and responsibilities. Character formation is still very much an essential component in honing you, our learners, amidst these fast-paced and challenging times.
You are living in an entirely different world compared to ours, because of the technology that you enjoy which results in both advantageous and disadvantageous outcomes. Hence, strengthening character development is highly necessary as you navigate the contemporary world today and in the future to come.