Our Students Know More Than Us!

I remember when I was in high school -- it was a major accomplishment if you could correct, respectfully of course, a teacher. Maybe it was a math teacher who made an arithmetic error, or a history teacher who accidentally twisted up some information from the past. Regardless, it didn't happen often.

This week, as I read through the text book, I got to page 7, just under "Social Learning." The first sentence caught me by surprise -- even though I already knew it. "Today's schools are faced with a difficult dilemma that pits a student boy that has grown up immersed in technology against a teaching faculty that is less agile with the tools of the trade." (Will Richardson) Yep -- it's true. I grew up with some of the technology. I'm only 26, so I am in the era of when video games exploded from a simple 20 minutes of fun, then you're board to vast online virtual worlds with millions of players across the continent playing with you. But I also was taught, and because it took some time for technology to get to where it was, to go outside! I suppose you could say I might very well be the last of the social butterfly generation! Back in the days of, "Meet at Jimmy's house at 7:30pm," you had to be at Jimmy's by 7:30pm, and if anything happened on your way there, there was no cell phone to tell him that you'd be late.

So when I read this line from Richardson, it took me a little by surprise. My students know more than I do about the virtual world. Not that I am ignorant of it, but they are far more immersed in it than I am. They know more tricks and tools than I do.

I suppose that's why I chose this major -- to make myself a better teacher and to be able to keep up with my students. Honestly, in 10 years, all that we learn now will be far outdated and replaced by something far more superior that we can't even imagine it yet, I hope that courses like this will give me the ability to keep up with the constantly changing world wide web.