I really love TED Talks. This one addresses the massive
shift in education that has taken place in the last decade due to the ease with
which we access the Internet. The way society, and as a consequence education,
has changed cannot be overstated. When I was a high school student I did not
have a cell phone. Notice I did not say smart phone – I did not have a cell
phone. I received my first one when I went to college. It was for emergencies
and only had 100 minutes on it. I distinctly remember when people started
texting, and I told a friend that texting wouldn’t last because it was just
easier to call. I stand corrected. Social media didn’t exist, or at least I
didn’t know about it, until after I had already graduated from college.
Now the amount of information available at our fingertips is
astronomical. I can learn to rewire my house, study the history of China, and
practice square dancing with the click of a few buttons. Education has changed.
We are no longer the keepers of the knowledge, but are rather facilitators of
experiences with knowledge. We are no longer the main source of information,
but rather are instructors of students as they process and analyze information.
In some ways it undermines the respect that students once had for educators
because teachers and schools are not the only name in the learning game
anymore.
I admit that I have a difficult time wrapping my mind around
these digital natives, who despite only being one generation removed, are
incredibly different from me. It is easy for me to focus on the negative
aspects of this cultural shift – the exploitative nature of social media, the
massive amounts of misinformation, the inflammatory programming of modern
television. It is frustrating, and frankly it is often just plain offensive. I
realize that I have to retrain my thinking, and accept that the way I love to
learn may not be the way these kids love to learn. As a student, I was
mesmerized by a knowledgeable teacher, and I fit in well with the public school
system that rewards the strong reader and the thinker who processes in outline
format. It is no wonder that our
students have short attention spans when they spend their days Snap Chatting,
Vining, Tweeting, and texting – their communication has been limited to 140
characters and a 20 second time limit! It is no wonder that our students
struggle with traditional notes when they are used to getting information on
websites packed with images and links.
We have to change and it isn’t going to be comfortable. We
did not learn like these kids learn, and we did not have the ability to
undermine the knowledge of the teacher right at our fingertips all day, every
day. The reason they crave authentic experiences with knowledge is that they
are constantly bombarded with information that is mostly fluff. They are the
most marketed to generation in history, and the media messages they receive are
immense. These messages have little value and do not allow our kids to feel
like they are creative participants in the world around them. They are begging
us to let them DO something with all of this information they are being given.
It is my hope that AHS will become the trailblazer in this area. What would
happen if our students took real responsibility for their learning and for this
school? What would happen if the burden was truly on them to build something?
