ABSTRACT
Gen Z wants an interactive learning experience worthy of the digital age. As digital natives, Gen Zers grew up with digital technology. The younger generation also sees mobile phones as work tools. In a Giessen secondary school, teachers can grant their students access to the school’s Wi-Fi network in order to allow them to use their mobile phones in class. Even for progressive schools, digitalisation remains an enormous challenge. Digitalisation has changed the requirements in the working world for how people acquire, evaluate and deploy information; those best able to consider how information is embedded in specific contexts, patterns and communities and then categorise that newfound knowledge are the ones most likely to succeed. Such interactive teaching is by no means the rule in German schools. The outdated school system is creating friction between Gen Zers and their elders.
