Where Are All of Our Problem Solvers?
As much as I don’t care to admit, or like to relate to, I am part of the millennial generation born in 1989. I am surrounded by others that are also part of that generation who are now out of college and into the world as young adults. Not sure what happened with my generation and on to Gen Z, those born between 1995 to 2015, but in the Western world, we don’t appear to be a bunch of problem solvers. We have a sense of entitlement that our problems will be solved by others and just want to Google everything or ask Siri/Alexa for all of our answers. Most of us don’t even know where to begin when a problem arises around the house or with our vehicles. It also bleeds into our relationships with significant others and friends. When a conflict emerges, most of us have a tendency to just ignore it and pretend it didn’t happen, or walk away from the relationship without any solutions, compromises, or closure. Our parents are confused and frustrated, as our we, not to mention our bosses and many others in our lives. The issue is affecting us negatively in more ways than we even realize and not allowing us to live our happiest, healthiest life.
Why is this happening on such a large scale? I am not claiming every person lacks in this area, but it is alarming to see that it is impacting most people today. Is it our teachers and the education system? When I think back to my schooling, I remember some cool projects and learning that involved “real life application”, a.k.a. how will this learning apply to my everyday life in the future. However, I also remember being told what to do to get the desired result. For example, doing a cooking lesson that involved measurement and reading a recipe. I followed the steps and did what was asked, probably earned an A, and the teachers chalked it up to “real life application and problem solving”. In other learning opportunities, I remember being put into groups to demonstrate the ability to problem solve- maybe it was a riddle, logic and reasoning activity, or math word problem to think through. It was a great attempt to teach the skill, however we were not taught how to collaborate, actively listen, or participate. We all know what this leads to… one student in the group having the opportunity to show off their ability to quickly think through it and tell the teacher the group was done. Again on a larger scale, I have to believe learning environments like that were all over the country; they contributed to maybe a few students out of a class having the opportunity to engage in problem solving. There was little to no guidance or encouragement from the teachers for those that were unable to demonstrate this skill and this is the larger issue at hand. Our world is full of people who think they don’t have the ability to problem solve because they are intimidated by the few that have perfected the art. Over the years, we have become comfortable with the idea that we don’t have to. And guess what? A lot of these millennials are our teachers today. They are attempting to teach this skill to Gen Z with the new “rigor” of learning. I have seen it first hand in the schools. It’s a failing model that no one talks about fixing. They just talk about it being an issue with our students. We went from 0 to 100 with the complexity of learning and most teachers are not trained on how to implement the new rigorous Common Core Learning Standards. Additionally, these teachers are being asked to be problem solvers themselves when thinking about how to teach this new curriculum, as well as the skills of problem solving, digital and financial literacy, innovation and engineering, and critical thinking just to name a few.
What about our parents? Are they to blame? Most parents raising our generations are overworked and more distracted than they realize. Even if they themselves are able to problem solve, they don’t make the time to teach it to their kids. It’s way quicker and easier to just tell someone what to do rather than guiding and/or coaching them to do it. Unfortunately, the skill of problem solving can’t be effectively learned without those guided practice opportunities that allow the productive struggle. The other issue is that they may not know how to. Because for them, they were given opportunities to solve their own problems. There was no technology in their upbringing, they spent more time doing things independently, and their parents allowed them to learn life’s lessons the hard way- trial and error. They had opportunities to talk about it with their parents or figure it out on their own without the adults running to solve it for them. Therefore they raise kids to the best of their ability in the ways they feel called to, solving all of their problems for them out of fear that their kids won’t succeed or they trust the schools to teach it. And, well, I gave you a few brief thoughts about why that wasn’t working either.
Is it us? The current generations that face this issue are most of the people that make up our work force and the students that fill the seats in our classrooms. We have grown up with parents that love us so much, they don’t want us to struggle at all. They don’t want us to fail and have provided us with everything we want. We are the master manipulators to get what we want and have learned to control situations to get what we want. However, what we think we want is skewed and we aren’t aware of what we need. We don’t ever really attempt to solve anything. As a collective, we are using all of our energy on thinking up ways to get out of situations with problems or avoiding them. Today’s generations experience feelings of extreme anger, confusion, sadness, and irritability any time we are asked to persevere with something or engage in productive struggle. We look at these situations as an inconvenience instead of a beautiful opportunity to grow and challenge ourselves. Can we shift our mindset in the slightest to recognize what we are doing?
This is a reminder that you are a successful problem solver; we all are. It’s in our human nature to figure things out. Think back to earlier times when things were uncivilized. Take the Native American culture for example- many thousands of years before this land was discovered by Christopher Columbus, this culture of people had to explore the land. They solved problems everyday about where to live, how to grow and harvest crops, how to work together and develop trading systems, or even how to handle being approached by a giant grizzly bear! This is a small glimpse of how regular problem solving was ingrained into their everyday lives and the sooner we can get back to this way of figuring things out for ourselves, the better off we will be.
It’s all about the choice. Do you want to continue to feel powerless in your job, at school, in your relationships, in your home? Do you want to continue playing the blame game? (Newsflash- it’s not our teachers, schools, parents, or anyone else) Choose to take your power back. Recognize the problem solving opportunities that are in front of you every day and remember it’s okay to make mistakes. That is the amazing thing about being human is that we have the power to choose. Stop looking at everything with such a limited perspective- black or white, this or that, A or B. Our problems always have many more solutions than that and we just need to be creative when solving them. We also have the power to make mistakes and reflect on what to do differently in the future- that’s learning and part of being a problem solver too.
Ask yourself, “What’s best case scenario?” and use your creative energy to think about how you get that desired outcome. Speaking first hand, you will surprise yourself, over and over. You will feel empowered, independent, and accomplished with every problem you figure out on your own when it lines up exactly with what you were hoping for. Hoping is not enough. You need to take the call to action to claim your power. There will still be moments where you catch yourself leaning on significant others, siblings and parents, friends, or coworkers to help you solve your problems. Sometimes it is helpful to get another’s perspective, but at the end of the day, it’s your problem to solve. Take more of those moments to engage in the productive struggle. Acknowledge that it will feel uncomfortable, but that doesn’t mean you have to be limited by constraints or that your problems aren’t solvable. I encourage you to be the creative being you were meant to be. Start to envision the solutions you want that align with your life so it’s as beautifully orchestrated as you’d like it to be. No limits. Be forever grateful for your ability to problem solve.
We are the problem solvers and the world is your oyster.
