What would you think if a student emailed you about this...

[HippyKayYay]

I'm a (very) mature student on a STEM MSc. One of the lecturers keeps on referring to us (as in the students on a particular MSc programme) as 'the Tik-Tok generation'. This is in reference to a particular assignment, that assumes we know how to make videos because we're of said generation.

It pisses me off. Firstly I'm not of that generation (in fact, I'm older than the lecturer). But also because it's just generally ageist and not ok to assume a group of people are of any identity (i.e. not ok to refer to us as if we were all men, all white, all whatever). I also have a sub-irk that this generalisation is allowing them to assume that we have particular skills (making audiovisual media) that is not related to the degree programme, not an entry requirement, and isn't something they're 'teaching' us. Yet they are assessing us on it. But that really is a sub-irk because I do know how to make a basic video.

Anyway - how would you feel if you were said lecturer and you got an email from me asking you not to refer to us as the 'Tik Tok generation', nor to make any generalised assumptions about the group based on characteristic that are protected by the equality act? I don't want to be that student... And in all other ways this lecturer is a nice person!

I'm not the only 'mature' student, btw, although I am definitely the oldest (by probably at least a decade, if not more) on my course... But I'm probably not the only one who doesn't feel like they're of the 'tik tok generation'

We would roll out eyes so hard and think you were incredibly petty. The Tik Tok generation is now. I don't personally have it nor do my sons, one of whom is a uni student, but we all know what they are and have seen such video reels and what the point of them is. We are all of that generation.

I would also roll my eyes a bit if I got this email. It’s very minor.

I really like this post, and it articulates what I think well. We are lecturers but we are also people, trying our best, running in to teach in a morning of nursery drop offs and traffic and whatnot, and sometimes we don’t phrase everything 100% perfectly, but we try our best. Complaining about every minor bad phrase is not the way forward imo

We can't all be of one generation, by the definition of what a generation is...

I wan't planning on 'complaining'. I was planning on asking him not to do it/ change his language.

I take your point about being humans. We all do things without thinking about their impact. But unless someone says 'hey, I'd appreciate it if you didn't do this one thing, and these are the reasons', how do we know?

It will make them feel on edge, and worry, especially if you bring up the equality act and protected characteristics. If you want that, go ahead.

as an aside - in a lecture room of 310 I have >30 special considerations I am meant to read and know about before each lecture. Of course they change each year and change for each module. Some students I have to do x for and some y and some g and some h. If it goes wrong it’s on me. This is the atmosphere you might not know about, and it is unbelievably stressful. An email about this, citing the EA and protected characteristics, would be put into that list and mentioned at faculty away days and so on as something else for everyone to think about.

I would leave this completely alone. If I received a communication of this nature, I would wonder why you didn't have something better to do. And really, who the fuck you thought you were trying to police language used (when that language isn't offensive).

Jobs these days often ask for a 1 minute Tik-Tok style video to be submitted as part of the application. This is the reality of today. It doesn't matter how old you are, this is now how we live.

Totally raise this - but as yourself not as part of the group. It is ageist but largely it is an assumption about people that affects the way they are taught. It may be a throw away remark and can be raised in a casual way I think (I don’t think it makes you ‘that student’ :) - but it does show an underlying stereotype and assumption by the lecturer which they should be reminded of.

i have a similar thing with my kids at school where the computing teacher assumed everyone is on tech all the time and knows by age 11 how to do everything. They then proceed to not teach large chunks of the basic curriculum as it is assumed that knowledge is there and reinforced all the time by phrases like ‘well you all live on social media anyway’ … Not all families have smart phones, social media or even laptops - the teacher actually really appreciated being called out on their assumptions and things changed.
im sure the lecturer genuinely hasn’t thought about what they are saying..

You know what they're saying though, even if your default is to be pedantic. This kind of response suggests you're just looking for the irk.

But is it assigning an age? To be fair we are all living in this generation when TikTok is around whatever our age so arguably we are all part of the TikTok generation.

I'd roll my eyes

I would mention it in a tutorial face to face -rather than can I have a word /email. At the heart of your annoyance is that they are making an assumption - but in this case - the assumption is correct because they and you are able to do what they are asking.

I'd just let this go. And I am a mature student (late 40s) who has just done a 4 yr undergraduate course, and now doing an MA.

My lecturers sometimes make similar comments, I'm the same age group as one and 10 years older than the other. I've had to do weird and wonderful assessments as well. A video presentation live (covid), a screen cast, a poster using datasets etc. I just look at those type of assessments as improving my skill set.

I assumed as a mature student that some of the course/culture/experiences would be different for me as a mature student. And it is but I have never felt excluded by any 'yoof of today' type comments. In fact I am good friends with some of the younger students, and actually the lecturers are always happy to help with any questions or skills I am not sure about.

You are, anyway, part of the TikTok generation of students. You are at university, presumably at a level requiring digital literacy, at a time when TikTok and its ilk are major and important communication tools. You need to engage with such things to get the full value from your studies. Age is not a block to this.

Better to chat informally with the lecturer about their assumptions and your feelings about what they said, not write an email.
I wouldn't be mentioning the Equality Act. That makes it sound like you're making an official complaint about non-compliance with the law. The Equality Act wasn't designed to support complaints about being called the tiktok generation, it was to protect people from discrimination and disadvantage.

You aren't offended by it.

You don't consider it to be discrimination.

It doesn't disadvantage you.

So what's the point?

This is very ott op

Writing emails to people complaining about their slightly inane comments is a really nasty thing to do and will get you disliked.

But that's fine said after a lecture as you Leave -I often did that with lectures (at 47)

Ie i don't think anyone else got your THIS LIFE student house reference but I did. (This was in equity law)

But that was never a formal complaint -just a "hey I am your age" type comment -but I treated lecturers more as colleagues than master/student -polite but on similar level.

I'd let it go.

When I did my MA, in my thirties, one of the lecturers used to speak about how 'we', as middle-class professionals, found it hard to relate to working-class teenagers disengaged with education. I'd been one of those teenagers, and it did make me feel awkward and class-conscious.

I realised though that the lecturer wasn't trying to intentionally say that working-class people shouldn't be on the course, and that the remark probably did apply to most people in the room! So I made sure to share my perspective in seminar discussion.

In other words, I completely understand how offhand remarks like that can make you feel out-of-place, but I don't think it's significant enough to raise. It's not intentional exclusion.

I have to say that in my department if I got an email like that, or a comment in person, I’d be forwarding it to the course director/my manager, and probably blind carbon copying them into every subsequent email exchange with you. And I’d make sure that anything I said to you was extremely bland and inoffensive, that I didn’t have any meetings or office hours with you without asking another colleague to sit in, and I’d make sure that I wasn’t personally supervising any of your further modules and that any written feedback was as vague and noncommittal as I could make it.

You’d probably find that everyone in the department was suddenly very nice, but very reserved, vague and noncommittal with you, and took pains not to give you any form of feedback that was anything but acceptably bland! And that nobody was keen to interact with you in any informal way. Nobody wants to be at risk of losing their job because of potential complaints.

Is that what you actually want?

This thread would be really shocking if it were about one of the other protected characteristics.

It's like ageism is the last acceptable prejudice.

Say what you think to the lecturer, politely, OP. Do it verbally though.

But it’s not ageism. She’s not being discriminated against

Can you really, really not see the difference? It's like saying 'kids like sweets'. Some kids won't, some non-kids will. No one's crying about feeling excluded by it. OP isn't remotely harmed, discriminated against or anything remotely akin to racism, sexism or even genuine ageism by a lecturer referencing the Tik Tok generation. No doubt everyone in the 80s 'generation' wasn't a 20-something yuppy, but pretty much everyone around in the UK then would've got the cultural references regardless of their age.

This. (Speaking as another very mature student.)

At graduation we were asked to applaud our "parents who had supported us through the course." Completely mis-read the room as it was a post grad degree very popular with mature students who had struggled to self fund, and in many cases sacrificed all sorts to complete it.

I don’t view it as discrimination, but it is somewhat ageist/a blind spot/assumption.