Today’s youngsters, the Generation Z, are different from their predecessors, especially in their adoption of digital technology.

Dr Dan Woodman, a sociology professor at the University of Melbourne whose research interest is generational labels, says that “there is some truth to generational talks, as our lives are shaped by the times we grow up in. But the labels, in general, are blunt and homogenising. They underplay inequality and often function as nasty stereotypes.”

American anthropological researchers and later marketers started using these labels to reckon with the trends amongst different generations, i.e the Baby Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, succeeded by Generation X (Gen-X), born between 1965 and 1980 and Generation Y from 1981 to 1994. I remember a local art, fashion and culture magazine called Gen-Y from the first decade of 2000, which discontinued a few years later, maybe as these generational debates weren’t fashionable then. Generation Z (Gen-Z) are people born between 1995 and 2012, the eldest being in their early 20s now. Generation Alpha is most often believed to include anyone born between 2010 and 2025.

These generational stipulations overlap and vary depending on the sources. As so many debates focus on these differences between generations in simultaneity, an important question is: Are we all that different from our older or younger counterparts? Well, in some crucial ways, we are not so different. We all want the same things about happiness, fulfillment, appreciation and security. Most of us aspire to a universal wish list, though the lens to see and approach things has vastly changed. The choices of virtues, attributes, foes and fallacies, amenities and possessions are all understood differently.

As a pedagogue, I have experienced a complete transformation from the analogue to born-digital visual and material cultures. Being Gen-X myself and interacting/dealing with a slightly delayed version of Gen-Z due to the late arrival of the internet and technology in our part of the world, I found that they still proudly live this label. For this newer generation, instant gratification is essential. A gig economy is the domain they love to operate in with utmost transparency. They do understand the term ‘political correctness’ but do not follow it completely.

They have developed their definitions of high culture that are different from their predecessors: Michelangelo might not be an exciting art debate anymore, but the AI-generated Bored Ape collectables in the NFT space are. Physical books had been essential for anyone who wished to cite a reference with the authenticity a few decades ago. However, the ways to read, seek and disseminate knowledge and communicate are all digital now. The Gen-Z students know precisely about the environment they are growing up in. An exciting shift to social media use and proficiency is at the pinnacle. The Gen-Z are simultaneously the owners and ambassadors of all brands. They use updated social media tools that provide avenues to connect with and engage consumers — packaging that includes quick-response (QR) codes on the label is a fantastic feature that enables a printed box to be interactive, even if augmented reality is catching up fast.

New teaching,methodologies that align the pedagogues and the Gen-Z students are the need of the hour. A gig economy prompts more agile workflows than a waterfall one.

Now a worrisome fact: typical Gen Z people have an attention span of just eight seconds, shorter than millennials’ approximately 12 seconds. The need of the hour is to work and introduce teaching methodologies that align the pedagogues and the Gen-Z students and their successors on the same page. A gig economy (a labour market characterised by the prevalence of short-term contracts or freelance work as opposed to permanent/ tenure jobs) prompts the agile workflows over a waterfall one. The education sector in Pakistan must learn from the inter(national) software industry and start exploring the missing links, i.e. Agile workflows, collaborative community boards online, Scrum and Kanban, as a starting point — all very rationalised workflow methodologies to meet the needs of the 21st Century, markets.

Let us have a quick look at the jargon? In from last few years, the focus has been shifted to exploring the interdisciplinary collaborations only because Millennials and Gen Z are less likely to be as closed-minded to group think as their predecessors. These generations are genuinely inclined towards union while living in the age of specialisation and customisation, which enabled both supplier and consumer to work together developing intra-disciplinary possibilities. This need popularised co-working spaces both virtual and physical, especially during the Covid times. Several new online solutions for teams sitting across the globe to think and work altogether, surfaced. The Agile (Scrum and Kanban project management frameworks) promotes individuals and interactions over processes and tools, customer collaboration over contract negotiation and responding to change over following a predetermined fixed plan.

Suppose I try to mimic a workflow methodology as a teaching methodology in a classroom setting. It translates students’ and teachers’ sensibilities over a rigid curriculum, academic-industry collaborations over just campus-based learning and responding to change over contrived and constricted syllabus-based textbooks.

In a few private schools and universities in Pakistan, the use and adaptability of higher technologically-enabled tool kits has paved significant inroads in academics, allowing for customised instruction and archiving of student visual and textual histories to pinpoint characteristics that accelerate achievement. Learning from interdisciplinarity is vastly needed to be applied across all educational sectors. This can be the fitting personification of a single national curriculum across Pakistan. If Pakistani politics needs to build upon some revolutionary hopes, it must consider the abilities and vision of Gen-Z.

The author is an art/ design   critic. He heads the Visual   Communication Department at Mariam Dawood School of Visual Arts & Design, Beaconhouse National University, Lahore.