People love to hate on Gen Z. They say that teenagers have no attention span. They can’t do anything for themselves. They are addicted to their phones. They don’t respect authority. They don’t know how to have a face-to-face conversation. People are often intimidated or confused by teenagers, and as a high school teacher I get asked all the time, “How do you do it?!”

I hear so many negative comments that people make about teenagers, and I wish that all of those people could have the opportunity to spend the day in my classroom with the next generation. You would see some of the teenager stereotypes, sure, but you would also be incredibly impressed and inspired.

Last week, my Spanish I students completed their group projects on Spanish-speaking countries. This is one of my favorite parts about teaching Spanish I, and my students always enjoy working on this project. Each group works together to choose a Spanish-speaking country to research and present to the class. Students create a digital presentation and a physical poster to showcase their country, and the goal is to promote the country and get people interested in visiting. They talk about the geography and climate, tourist attractions, modes of transportation, popular hotels and accommodations, and obviously all the amazing food!

This semester, we had a great variety of countries represented, and the students truly went above and beyond on their presentations. Some groups had “walkout” music, some created their own mini flags to hold, and everyone seemed to have a lot of fun learning about these new countries!

One of the project groups was made up of three native Spanish speakers. Two of the girls are from Mexico, one is from Venezuela, and all three of them speak very little English. Spanish is a pretty easy class for them, but they are working extremely hard on their English so that they can communicate with their teachers and learn the material for their other classes.

As they started working on their project, one of the girls asked me if they should put the information in English or Spanish. I told her that they could choose to do it however they wanted, and to my surprise, they did the entire digital presentation in English! I told them they could talk about the information in Spanish if that would be easier, but I left it up to them to decide how to present everything.

When they got up to present, the first two girls talked about the poster they had created in Spanish. They talked about the colors on the flag and the number of stars, which turned into a fun teaching moment for my students to hear familiar vocabulary (colors and numbers) in a more authentic context. They were very excited when they realized they could understand!

Then, one of the girls said she wanted to try to present the information from the digital presentation to the class in English. (This is a huge deal! Imagine giving an entire presentation by yourself, completely in another language, in front of 20+ teenagers.) So, I told the other students in the class that she was going to present in English, and I asked them to be patient and supportive of her. I didn’t need to explain how difficult it would be for her, because they understood. And what happened next confirmed that in ways I never could have imagined.

When the student began the presentation in English, every single one of her classmates was beaming with pride. When she finished the introduction, they burst into applause with genuine excitement. When she got to a word she didn’t know how to pronounce, I didn’t even have to help because my students were graciously and humbly teaching her how to say the words. When she hesitated or felt unsure of herself, the students would tell her that she was doing great and that she should be more confident!

About halfway into the presentation, she did start to gain more confidence. She was laughing and thanking the students for helping her with the challenging words, and she even jokingly called a student out for not paying attention! When she finished, everyone cheered and cheered for her. They were so proud of her and inspired by her, and it was clear that she was just as proud of herself.

This is just one small story from one of my classes, but it left a huge impact on me. I can’t stop thinking about how proud I am of my students right now and how thankful I am to be their teacher. We have a lot to learn from the next generation. My Gen Z students are one of the biggest blessings in my life, and they remind me every single day why I love teaching high school.