“The only answer to the best questions is another good question. And so the best questions send students on rich and meaningful lifelong quests, question after question after question.”
Michael Wesch
In his article “Anti-teaching: Confronting The Crisis of Significance” Michael Wesch starts off by stating “Students – are struggling to find meaning and significance in their education.” I totally agree with this statement. This past week I discussed the significance of education to one of my students who did not think what she was learning had any significance to her future. Although she made a good argument (for a 17 yr. old) she was met with a counter argument that was better. This word ”significance” however is very vital to what we teach, how we teach, and how kids learn. According to Wesch, students want to know that what they are learning has meaning. Fortunately Wesch does give his reader the answer to this “significance “problem. “If our students are not “cut out for school,” perhaps we have made the mold too narrow or inflexible, or more likely, just not meaningful enough to inspire a student to fit in. That’s the significance problem”(5).
So we, as educators need to try and inspire these students to enjoy and feel more connected to their education. He states, “waiting for anybody interested in creating a meaningful learning environment to harness and bring significance back into the classroom”(6). Most educators try very hard. The new Common Core Standards of Rhode Island are educating teachers on how to do this; Informational Text. The fictional novels and short stories are out, and current events and world news are in. I do think that students will make good connections to current events. These types of readings can open up a connection to a student’s future and help them connect to the world they live in. These connections would lead to critical thinking, and critical thinking would lead to questions, and questions would lead to a classroom of dialogicality, which Gerri August would fully agree with. Wesch would also agree, as he says in his article. “Good questions are the driving force of critical and creative thinking and therefore one of the best indicators of significant learning.” Well, this would be wonderful if educators would just take out fiction and replace it with non fiction. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that easily. But I do agree that informational text is crucial in teaching critical thinking skills.
As far as I am concerned, and I think Michael Wesch would agree, a vital tool that is lacking in American schools, both colleges and high schools, is the implementation of technology. In this article he discusses technology as a tool in the classroom. His video “A Vision of Students Today” is clearly a message of students who are craving that educators understand the vital importance of intergrading technology as a tool to teach. What is most unfortunate is that the only schools that have this opportunity are those that are “privileged” enough to afford the technology. Although, college classrooms need to be aware of the fact that many college students come equipped with their own digital tools.
Michael Wesch below in this clip discusses the importance of the web Media in education.
“The principle goal of education is to create men and woman who are capable of new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done” Jean Piaget
Technology
I read a quote by someone, I cannot remember where, but is stated something like this. Students do not need to know the capital of Florida anymore, their phones can tell them that, rather the students of tomorrow need to think critically. I think this is what Wesch is saying when he discusses the questions kids need to answer and the critical thinking that comes with the questions. Questions need to be different, teaching needs to be different. We educators may be afraid of this shift because we were not rasied as “digital natives” as Gary Small, a UCLA neuroscientist, has named the technology generation of today. We are comfortable in the ways we teach but seriously, kids learn differently today.
According to many different studies, kid’s brains are wired differently as a result of technology. They have become masters of multi-tasking, which has its benefits and its disadvantages. However, the one thing most scientists agree with is that technology has had an impact on the way kids learn and focus. This following two video clips explore “Teens Brains on Technology.” It is extremely interesting, especially for those of us who are opposed to the fact that kids can thrive in the same lecture driven classrooms that we did as kids.
to your own learning,
for they were born in another time”
Chinese Proverb.
According to Educause, an online E-book titled Educating the Net Generation, “The Net Generation has grown up with information technology. The aptitudes, attitudes, expectations, and learning styles of Net Gen students reflect the environment in which they were raised—one that is decidedly different from that which existed when faculty and administrators were growing up.”
Another important quote that I took form this online article “Growing up with Technology” As a member of the Net Generation, I have been surrounded by advances in digital technology, almost to the point where I cannot do my work as a journalist without it. In university, I have used assessment tools such as WebAssign and WebCT in classes as supplements to lecture and textbook. But now technology is advancing at such a rate that traditional ways of teaching and learning are not pushing students and teachers to their full potential. By using IT properly in the classroom, teaching and learning are enhanced and given a new dimension. Before curricula can be created to challenge the Net Generation, though, faculty must know how Net Geners learn and interact with each other, with technology, and with life in general. Remember that word—interact.”
http://www.educause.edu/Resources/EducatingtheNetGeneration/UsingTechnologyasaLearningTool/6060
Interaction is significant. If we want our students to think critically, connect the world they live in and think about their future, and be able to get a job when they graduate, then we need to make some advances in the classroom, well in the educational system overall.
"If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow"
John Dewey
Hi Diana,
ReplyDeleteLove your quotes-Dewey Rocks! Great presentation last week, too.