‘Replacement of core values with materialistic ideologies a problem of younger generations’

AMMAN — “My son told me he would rather buy the new iPhone than eat for a month,” Hala Khateeb, a mother who voiced her frustration over her children’s materialistic thinking, told The Jordan Times.

Hala is not the first parent, teacher or academic figure to notice a wide-spread leaning towards materialism in millennials. Teachers who have been doing the job for decades told The Jordan Times that the new technological age has dramatically influenced students of all age groups.

“Aside from lack of concentration, which has always been present with or without the invention of phones, there are several serious problems with the new generation. The replacement of core values with materialistic ideologies is too obvious to go unnoticed,” Abrar Maaytah, a teacher with 15 years experience, told The Jordan Times.

According to experts, technology is not the only match lighting the flame. The absence of authoritative parents, peer pressure and the lack of ethics classes all add to the fire, according to academic experts.

“People blame technology, because it is the easiest thing to do. What truly is the problem can be summed up in one sentence: Society is abandoning its responsibility of guiding the youth,” a school principal, who preferred to remain anonymous, told The Jordan Times.

Absence of authoritative parents

“Parents used to have more influence on the child, but now it’s hard to do that with the world becoming a small village,” noted Suzan Ibrahim, a geography teacher.

Suzan recalled the story of a mother who told her that her son, who is in the fourth grade, was “ashamed” of her car, and so he would throw a tantrum if she did not park at least a kilometre away from the school and walk him to the gate.

The mother said that she and her husband have tried talking with their child but that he is “stubborn and spoiled”.

Suzan said that her advice to the mother, and all other mothers with same problem, is to “be more authoritative”. Her suggestion was to take away the child’s electronic belongings, as well as sign him up for a school bus so that “he no longer enjoys the pleasure of a private car”. She also suggested that both parents give the child “silent treatment” so that he knows for sure that his behaviour is unacceptable.

Peer pressure

William Taweeleh, a scholar for over 30 years, told The Jordan Times about an unfortunate student at a high-end school to illustrate the pressures youth undergo to live up to their peers’ standards: “I tried explaining to my students once that the latest and first phone models both have the same function: to make calls. I told them that if your phone does that function then they could use the money for the phone to go on a trip and discover the world instead.”

He recalled a student then shouting, “what’s the point if I can’t take a decent picture of my travels to post?” 

Taweeleh continued, “it was of course meant as a joke, but the students all laughed, and no one took the advice seriously”.

During his office hours, a student came to Taweeleh and confessed the trouble he goes through because of the emphasis his friends put on looks. “He told me he is only at the school because of a scholarship he has gotten, and that his parents come from a much lower financial class than all his peers. He admitted that he has become a compulsive liar to find excuses for his old-fashioned phone and belongings, in addition to the luxuries he lacks.”

The story of Taweeleh’s student is not the first of its kind, with many teachers and professors noticing that lower class pupils sometimes do not buy the required academic books and instead use that money for luxuries.

Lack of ethics classes

Various academic sources cited an “ethics crisis” and the fact that schools in Jordan do not include “ethics classes” in their curriculum. An ethics class, which is essential in many developed countries, is one period a week, in which students have to learn a certain moral and act on it, or talk about their behaviour problems and seek advice to solve them.

With no specific period being assigned for that purpose, and with curriculum having to be finished by a certain deadline, teachers said that they sometimes have to prioritise the learning material over advice or life lessons.

“It’s hard to teach the children anything but the curriculum when we have a deadline and only three or four 50-minute periods to do so in,” said Rawa Moghrabi, a maths teacher. 

“No one cares if you don’t tell the children how to act right, but they would if you don’t finish your assigned material,” her colleague, who preferred to remain anonymous said.