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While driving to see my beautiful and wonderful new grandchildren ,I had many hours in the car. Part of these hours were spent listening to "Hot Flat and Crowded". I had to wonder what the world would look like for them when they were entering adulthood. One interesting story was about China achieving phone service in every house (cellular) without going through the resource intensive land line phase. Many changes that were predicted in my lifetime did not occur, or did not occur in the path that was expected. Our children and grandchildren will achieve goals, some of which I can predict and some beyond my imagination. Our grandchildren probably follow their own pathways to reach these goals.
Our goals in education should be to teach students, not only to reach the goals, but to use creativity in the paths to that goal.
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Truly the only thing predictable about the future for our students and our grandchildren is its'unpredictability. Students' lack of desire to "think for themselves" is probably what frustrates me the most as I strive to prepare them for the future. We, as educators, have trained them so well to do exactly as instructed, it is difficult to get them to "think outside the box". Old habits are hard to break, but I do believe we will persevere for the sake of their future and the future of our grandchildren.
ReplyDeleteI'll chime in to the getting students to THINK conversation here. Lately, especially with my regular English 11 class, I find myself having to resist the temptation to break down assignments into simple "Do This" tasks where I've done the thinking for them and they simply act like robots to give me step one, step two, and so-on. Admittedly, the robot route is easier. It takes less class time, so I can "cover" more material. It is less frustrating for the students and for me the teacher. It's easier to grade. But, in my heart, I know the learning is not as great. I'm having to give myself a pep talk to keep fighting the fight--to keep forcing them to think, even when they resist, and they most assuredly are resisting: "Why can't you just tell us what to do?"
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