Best-selling Generations author Neil Howe to speak and release new book at ACTE Orlando Convention

ACTE is proud to announce that best-selling author and national speaker, Neil Howe, will speak at the ACTE 2003 Annual Convention in Orlando in December, where he will release a new book in his best-selling series about generations in America. Howe?s first book, Generations: History of America?s Future, co-authored by William Strauss, won critical acclaim and was hailed by national leaders as politically diverse as former Vice President Al Gore and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. The book to be released at the ACTE convention, Millennials in the Workplace, promises to deliver provocative insights about the youth of today, the Millennial Generation.

In his presentation at the convention on Friday, December 12, Neil Howe will share powerful insights into the Millennial Generation: what motivates them as consumers and workers, and how they will shape our national future. Following his presentation, attendees will have an opportunity to meet Neil Howe during a book signing. Copies of his new book to be released at the convention, Millennials in the Workplace, will be available.

With graduate degrees in economics and history from Yale University, Neil Howe's consulting firm ? LifeCourse Associates ? allows him to work with a wide variety of corporate and nonprofit groups. He is also Senior Advisor on Public Policy to the Blackstone Group and Senior Advisor to the Concord Coalition. In addition to Generations, Howe and Strauss have co-authored best-selling titles including 13th-Gen, The Fourth Turning and Millennials Rising.

Interview with Neil Howe

ACTE's flagship member magazine Techniques interviews best-selling author Neil Howe about his upcoming book to be released at the 2003 Annual Convention in Orlando, Millennials in the Workplace.

Techniques: Who is the ?Millennial Generation??

Neil Howe: The Millennial Generation is the generation of Americans born in 1982 and after. They are the post ?Generation X? generation. Generation X was raised to discover the world for themselves, to learn by trial-and-error, and to see themselves as free agents. The Millennial Generation has been raised very differently. They are the protected generation, the ?baby on board? children, whose parents doted over them and gave them high expectations of being the best and having the best.

Theirs is a planned life, not just a balanced life. The Gen-X idea of what young people should do is try anything, and if it fails, to learn from the failure. The whole ethic of Gen-X is to solve it on your own. Millennials are different. They?ve trusted parents and society to solve their problems for them, and that expectation will continue.

Techniques: What else sets them apart from earlier generations?

Neil Howe: Unlike Xers and Baby Boomers -- the parents of today?s teens ? the Millennials believe they have a special role to play in America?s future. Rather than the Gen-Xers who were cut free and sent out on their own, the Millennials form their life goals and life decisions collaboratively with their parents, which has given rise to an interesting phenomenon that marketers call co-purchasing. Never in the history of postwar opinion polling has such a high percentage of teens said they agree with their parents? values and get along with their parents. Millennials have also been responsible for some very positive changes in youth behavior that have been under-reported by the media: 70% reduction in violent crime in the past 10 years, 40% reduction in teen pregnancy, an equivalent reduction in abortions, reductions in teen sex by 20% according to data from the Centers for Disease Control, and reductions in binge drinking and cigarette smoking.

They are more conventional than the last generation. They like structured situations with rules. They are the Harry Potter generation. Their lives are filled with exams, tests, contests, teamwork. Probably one of the biggest differences with their Boomer parents is that this generation believes in community. It?s a very different ethic from when the Xers were in school.

These kids are protected. Through their entire childhood, they have witnessed rising concern over movie and TV ratings, zero tolerance in the classroom, V-chips, urban curfews, and other family mechanisms to protect the children. More than ever before, schools and colleges have a priority to avoid harm to them. Parents have high expectations. They don?t want to see them fail. And the kids themselves have every expectation of success.

Unlike Gen-Xers, Millennials have plans. We are seeing a lot more grade-school kids with 5-year and 10-year plans. Some are trying to visit future employers in junior high school. They are confident. They believe they will succeed financially. As your members well know, the majority of these kids believe they will go to college. Even if many of them won?t go or will later drop out, a lot more Millennials and their parents simply won?t settle for second best.

Techniques: What effect did the changing generations have on career and technical education?

Neil Howe: During the so-called American High of the 1950s and early 1960s, when the Baby Boomers were growing up, we had an educational system that everyone thought worked well, not only for college-bound students, but for those who were entering the workplace after high school. But when the Baby Boomers came of age amid the Consciousness Revolution, the system began to be questioned. The whole idea of ranking, tracking and classifying people was discredited. ?Vocational education? soon became a backwater.

Techniques: What are the implications for education?

Neil Howe: There are huge implications for society and for our educational system, including the career and technical education system. As I said before, parents have high expectations and don?t want these kids to fail. The kids themselves don?t expect to settle for second-best. These expectations have given rise to great pressure for a new system to be put into place, one that won?t fail, that won?t leave anyone behind, that will guide people in the right direction. Society was comfortable telling young Gen Xers to go it alone, keep their distance from the system, and learn from individual failure. Society does not want to see Millennials going down the same path.

One of the biggest challenges facing career and technical education, which your members are already well aware of, is the pressure to reshape programs to help all kids become college-ready or to be their best, whatever they choose. We see it everywhere. A recent example comes from a policy paper issued by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation entitled ?Closing the Graduation Gap: Toward High Schools That Prepare All Students for College, Work and Citizenship.? There is pressure today for every program to incorporate academic rigor that not only colleges, but that employers expect. Unfortunately, both are often disappointed.

The answer lies in getting away from at-risk and damage control in education, and moving to a new model based on confidence and teamwork and mastery of the future. That?s what young Millennials want. That?s where we all should want to go.