The Kids Are Alright (If We Let Them Be)

In the popular imagination, the generational landscape is a battlefield. We obsess over the skirmishes between Boomers and Zoomers, and we derive a perverse, collective joy from despising Millennials—the generation we love to call spoiled, even as they age into their forties. Education analysts, meanwhile, wring their hands over shrinking attention spans and widening technology gaps. But standing at the front of a classroom filled with Generation Alpha—children born after 2010—I don’t see a divide. I see a bridge.

I have over four decades of life experience on my students. By all actuarial logic, we should be alien species to one another. I am a product of the analog world; they are the first true digital natives, born entirely within the twenty-first century. 

Yet, we share a grim commonality: we survived the pandemic. While I was shaken by the disruption, they were formed by it. Generations forged in crisis often possess a unique tensile strength, and despite the forty-year chasm, the dynamic in my classroom is not one of friction, but of eager, almost electric exchange.

The first thing one notices about Gen Alpha is that they are, statistically, the most ethnically diverse cohort in history. But in the room, this isn’t a pie chart; it is simply the air they breathe. For them, inclusivity is not a corporate mandate or a political stance—it is their baseline. I watch them navigate differences with an intuitive grace that previous generations spent lifetimes trying to learn.

Beyond the demographics, there is a spirit here that defies the gloom of the evening news. I see a profound kindness—a willingness to accept others with a shrug and a smile. Perhaps the COVID years taught them early that there are forces neither parents nor money can hold back, instilling a humility that looks a lot like wisdom. While we fret about their limitless screen usage, they are busy developing a deep social awareness. They will adapt to AI and algorithms just as we adapted to pocket calculators and color television. They are hungry for context, soaking up history from me, while I find myself learning, through osmosis, how to live in the future.

Yet, as much as I enjoy this honeymoon phase of inter-generational understanding, a shadow hangs over the sanctuary of the classroom. Here, kindness is currency. But eventually, the bell will ring for the last time. They will step out into a university system that is fiercely polarized and a housing market that seems designed to repel them. They will enter a workforce where AI is cannibalizing entry-level roles and where cynicism is often mistaken for sophistication.

The question that keeps me up at night is not whether they will master the curriculum, but rather: How do we ensure the world doesn’t beat the kindness out of them?

If we want to sustain their spirit, the burden falls on us—the elders, the mentors, the hiring managers. We cannot simply admire their virtues like museum exhibits; we must build the infrastructure to protect them.

First, we must retire the notion that empathy is a "soft skill." In the corporate grinder, kindness is often viewed as a garnish, secondary to the "hard" power of technical ability. This is a relic of a bygone era. For Gen Alpha to retain their humanity, they need to see that the leaders who succeed are not the ruthless ones, but the inclusive ones, who dare be actively anti-racist and pro-diversity. If they see empathy rewarded with promotion, they will keep it. If they see it punished as weakness, they will armor themselves with cynicism to survive.

Second, we must protect their curiosity from the industrial-scale burnout of modern life. The current university and corporate ethos is transactional—grades for degrees, hours for dollars. This pressure cooker crushes the joy of discovery. We need to foster environments where mental health is valued as highly as GPA, and where purpose is tracked as closely as profit. If we treat these students like machines, they will eventually break like them.

Finally, we must bridge the gap with humility. My forty-year head start is an asset only if I approach them with openness. Too often, the older workforce views youth with skepticism, mistaking a desire for balance as a lack of work ethic. To sustain Gen Alpha’s inclusivity, we must meet them halfway. We must stop demanding they conform strictly to "how things used to be" and instead create a mentorship that moves in two directions. They learn resilience and institutional knowledge from us; we learn adaptability and radical empathy from them.

It is a joy to teach Generation Alpha. They are the most promising cohort I have ever encountered since I started teaching in 1988. But potential is fragile. If we want them to remain the kindest generation in history, we cannot simply send them into a broken world and wish them luck. We have to start fixing the room they are about to walk into, ensuring that when they finally arrive at the tables of power, they don’t feel compelled to leave their kindness at the door.