{"id":835,"date":"2020-05-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-06T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/reports\/teaching-generation-z-your-questions-answered-part-i\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T05:12:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T05:12:19","slug":"teaching-generation-z-your-questions-answered-part-i","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/teaching-generation-z-your-questions-answered-part-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Teaching Generation Z – Your Questions Answered: Part I"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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\n May 06, 2020 <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>Articles<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

Teaching Generation Z – Your Questions Answered: Part I<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n \n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Just how important is consistent teaching? And what can we be doing to protect the mental wellbeing of our young athletes? Jonnie Noakes, the Director of Teaching and Learning at Eton College, answers your questions.<\/p>\n \n \n \n

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Jonnie Noakes is one of the most popular speakers we\u2019ve ever welcomed to the stage at Leaders.<\/h4>\n
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By John Portch<\/h6>\n

The Director of Teaching and Learning at Eton College first spoke at the 2018 Leaders Sport Performance Summit in London<\/u><\/a> about sustaining the independent boarding school\u2019s global reputation for excellence.<\/p>\n

Noakes returned in March for our Virtual Leaders Meet: Coach Development<\/u><\/a> event, where he gave a presentation on the rise of Generation Z, their characteristics, and the steps coaches might consider in their approach to instructing Gen Z athletes.<\/p>\n

The virtual attendees, all members of the Leaders Performance Institute, were encouraged by our host Michael Caulfield to submit questions to be answered by Noakes at the end.<\/p>\n

Caulfield endeavoured to ask as many as he could in the allotted time, but there were simply too many to run through. The Leaders Performance Institute was taking notes in the background and we later approached Noakes with the idea of responding to a selection of those unasked questions.<\/p>\n

He readily agreed and generously gave of his time for this reprise. \u201cI should say before I go any further that I am not an elite sports coach – I am a teacher,\u201d he reminds the Leaders Performance Institute at the outset. \u201cThere may be some aspects of working with elite sportspeople and teams that I\u2019m just not expert to talk about.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is, however, his experience of teaching Generation Z at one of the world\u2019s foremost schools, as well as his work as the Director of Eton\u2019s Tony Little Centre for Innovation and Research in Learning, that inspired his inquisitors.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I\u2019m trying to do here,\u201d he continues, \u201cis give you my own impressions based partly on my own experience and partly on the evidence and research about Generation Z; and I hope that some of it is relevant to elite sports.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such was the detail and consideration that went into each of Noakes\u2019 responses that we have divided this Q&A into two parts. The first instalment focuses on how Gen Zs respond to challenge and adversity, their mental health, and the value or otherwise of consistent approaches to education.<\/p>\n

[The second part can be found here<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

During your presentation, you spoke of Generation Zs being serious and inclined to respond to the idea that if they work hard they will see the rewards. Competition is naturally polarising, thus, what represents a ‘loss’ for Generation Z?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Morgan Gregory, Cincinnati Reds<\/b><\/strong><\/h6>\n

This is an interesting question that in one sense applies to all generations, which is where to strike the balance between encouraging individual competitiveness on the one hand and, on the other, teamwork, pro-social behaviour; the sorts of behaviours that we want people grouped in a team to show.<\/p>\n

I emphasised in my talk that Generation Z are very individualistic, less open to collaboration, more focused on their individual goals; and what I think Morgan might be asking here is: are they particularly prone to go down the individualistic, competitive path and therefore lose something from what can be gained from collaboration? I think the answer is potentially yes.<\/p>\n

The potential loss for Generation Z is that they don\u2019t get all of the rewards for working on something collaboratively as a team. So much more is achieved, not only in sport, but in every other situation, when you bring everyone\u2019s strengths together.<\/p>\n

Having said that, the fact that Morgan works with the Cincinnati Reds, and what they do is very focused on teamwork, I would expect that his athletes would have learnt collaboration and teamwork from that situation. It doesn\u2019t seem possible for me for sportspeople, working in teams, not to embrace collaboration.<\/p>\n

From your experience and from what research tells us, how do Generation Z handle being challenged publicly by their peers and elders?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Charlie Mulchrone, Harlequins RFC<\/b><\/strong><\/h6>\n

Generation Z are currently in what we would call adolescence; and by \u2018adolescence\u2019 I mean the period until your brain is fully formed and you have a fully formed identity. So we\u2019re talking mid-20s. Everyone at that stage finds being challenged by their peers very difficult; or being challenged in front of their peers by their elders; they find that difficult too. The main reason for this is in adolescence, going from puberty right up to mid-20s, what is most important to the young person is peer acceptance. It seems to be hard-wired into the human brain and it\u2019s absolutely crucial to people of that age that they are accepted and respected by their peers.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to split Charlie\u2019s question into two, which is how Generation Z respond to being challenged by their peers is different to how they respond to being challenged by their elders.<\/p>\n

If they perceive that the challenge is friendly and encouraging, and supportive, then they are probably going to respond to it reasonably well. But if they perceive it in being as some way rejecting them, then they\u2019re going to find that particularly hard if it comes from peers.<\/p>\n

The other aspect that applies particularly to Generation Z is that anything I\u2019ve said so far would apply to any generation, really, while they\u2019re going through adolescence. What really applies to Generation Z, as I said in my talk, is that they are a ‘DIY’ generation; they\u2019re independent-minded and they\u2019re quite good at forging their own paths and, therefore, being open to guidance and being challenged, which can be a form of guidance, by others can be hard for them because they\u2019re very independent-minded in how they approach everything.<\/p>\n

What I would suggest is that if one wants to challenge them, one first needs to win their trust that what you\u2019re doing here is to come alongside them and help them to achieve their own goals; allow them to forge their own path and you\u2019re supporting them in what they want to achieve; and they\u2019re more likely to listen to what you\u2019re saying, if that\u2019s the case.<\/p>\n

Is the \u2018work hard and see rewards attitude\u2019 of Generation Z contributing to wellbeing and mental health issues? If so how do we mitigate that and encourage them to prioritise self-care?<\/strong><\/p>\n

William Murray, Hymers College<\/b><\/strong><\/h6>\n

This is a very topical and pressing question. The first aspect of the answer I\u2019d like to give is that there is no question is that there are mental health issues among young people; and when I say there is ‘no question’ I mean that there is good evidence that young people, and young people particularly in the late teens age group, are seeing an exponential rise in mental health problems.<\/p>\n

When you start to dig into what are the causes of these mental health problems, they seem to be quite varied; but one aspect, without question, is the pressure of high-stakes competitiveness. A generation that feels it needs to push itself hard in order to achieve high standards is going to be very vulnerable to that kind of pressure.<\/p>\n

I think there\u2019s another aspect here that working hard and seeing rewards is in itself a healthy attitude, but if the rewards you want to see are unrealistic or idealised, then that can be particularly problematic. And in a generation that, for its communication, relies a lot on social media, there is a huge danger that what they aspire to is not very realistic; if you like, they are taking their aspirations from the ways that others are presenting their success online; and that\u2019s always a curated form of success. It\u2019s rarely the full story.<\/p>\n

What can we do to answer William\u2019s question? Well, I think there\u2019s quite a lot that we can do. It\u2019s important that we hold high expectations because risk and challenging goals are good for us, but encouraging these young people to achieve their aspirations is trying to get them to focus away from themselves.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re back on collaboration; try to encourage them to work as a team, try to encourage them to be pro-social and helpful to others; that\u2019s actually good for one\u2019s mental health. Those social connections that are built through that kind of behaviour are one of the most powerful drivers of wellbeing; and there\u2019s good evidence for that.<\/p>\n

Encourage them to have a growth mindset; they don\u2019t need to know how to do something until they\u2019ve learnt how to do it; and failure is a part of learning. To see the whole process of learning as a question of improving <\/i><\/em>themselves and not just proving<\/i><\/em>\u00a0themselves; proving what they can already do, but improving through trial and error; that\u2019s important.<\/p>\n

And growth mindsets. Letting them know that failure often leads to success; letting them know that feeling bad about things is normal. Only psychopaths and dead people don\u2019t feel anything. It\u2019s normal and we shouldn\u2019t apologise for bad feelings; we shouldn\u2019t pathologise bad feelings. Tell them these bad feelings don\u2019t last; and don\u2019t over-protect them.<\/p>\n

I suppose the key thing is if we\u2019re setting them aspirations or they are setting themselves aspirations and working towards them, help them to see how to get there; teach them the skills or teach them the pathway through those skills that will help them to get to where they want to be; otherwise it can overwhelming.<\/p>\n

My practical experience with Generation Z is not that they value hard work; rather, they want more information [from their coaches]. Do you feel that their backgrounds could be a factor? Are their characteristics socio-economic as much as generational?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Paul Gustard, Harlequins RFC<\/b><\/strong><\/h6>\n

This is an important general point that Paul raises here, which is that any time someone talks about generational trends, one has to allow that these are just that: they are overall trends. There will always be some very wide variation within any generation. We know this from our own experience; entire generations don\u2019t all behave exactly the same; and if you start to unpick what those differences are, without doubt, socio-economic background always have an important influence. This is true for every generation. So while it might be true and, in fact, is true from the evidence, Generation Z, as a whole, show certain patterns. Of course, within the generation, different groups and socio-economic groups will behave differently.<\/p>\n

So if what Paul is saying is that they want to be guided, they want as much information as possible, that, in effect, they\u2019re asking a lot from their coaches rather than being self-driven, then he\u2019s observing a behaviour that\u2019s true of that particular group for whatever reason; perhaps it\u2019s to do with their background, perhaps it\u2019s to do with the way they\u2019ve been schooled or trained up to that point; I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

How do you go about encouraging system or organisational level change at Eton College so that a student is not exposed to inconsistent educational approaches?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Karl Steptoe, Loughborough University<\/b><\/strong><\/h6>\n

This is a question that all educational or training organisations face: to what extent do you want a consistent, coherent and uniform experience and to what extent do you want a varied experience? It\u2019s always been a part of Eton ethos that we allow a high degree of autonomy among the teachers, which means to some degree, the boys do get an inconsistent educational experience.<\/p>\n

The implication behind this question is that that\u2019s a bad thing; actually, in some ways, we think it can be a really good thing, because another word for inconsistent is \u2018varied\u2019; and if you\u2019re requiring your students to learn for hours and hours every day, a varied educational experience or a varied set of approaches can be tremendously refreshing. One doesn\u2019t necessarily want things to be entirely consistent in the experience of the learner.<\/p>\n

Having said that, there must be a fundamental consistency otherwise they\u2019re going to get a mixed message. There must be a set of values, there must be a set of aims to which the entire organisation is set up.<\/p>\n

Karl’s question about how do we do it at Eton. We know what we\u2019re trying to achieve; I\u2019m not just talking about our exam results, I\u2019m talking about our broader educational aims. We know what they are; they\u2019re explicit. We know what learning experiences we want the boys to have. We\u2019re not just talking about intellectual experiences but also character experiences, interpersonal experiences. We define all of these and we say these are the experiences we want our boys to have; and then we ask our colleagues to work out how we\u2019re going to give the boys those experiences.<\/p>\n

What the boys are getting is a consistent framework that we\u2019re all feeding into, but we\u2019re all doing it in our own way. One of the benefits of doing it in our own way is that you allow individual teachers, or coaches in the case of sport, to play to their individual strengths. There\u2019s very little point in me in my role as Director of Teaching and Learning trying to teach my colleagues to work in a way that doesn\u2019t work for them. They\u2019re going to become worst teachers; but if we say this is where we want you to go, this is what we want you to achieve, go there in a way that you know best how to do; you get the best out of them. That\u2019s the approach we take.<\/p>\n

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Could you and your team be making better use of your performance metrics?<\/strong><\/p>\n

If so, then the latest Leaders Performance Institute Special Report, Analyse This: Managing Your Metrics<\/em>, will be right up your street. It features a variety of sports organisations, from the San Antonio Spurs<\/strong> and England Netball<\/strong>, to the Wests Tigers<\/strong> and Tennis Australia<\/strong>, via British Skeleton<\/strong>. Download it now.<\/p>\n